Stefano Corona
Zooplankton are altering significantly with on-going climate change, include geographical shift in the distribution of species (most commonly this is a movement to more poleward latitudes), phenological shift (changes in the timing of key life-cycle events, which may lead to mismatches with phytoplankton and higher predators), and body size changes (size at maturity and in the community body size both tend to decline with warming, especially so in marine systems).
I will focus on these topics in my PhD, the goal of the research being to understand how these three major responses are interlinked. My work will include the analysis of long-term time series of data from several plankton sampling stations across Europe. Some questions I will address include: Is there a trade-off between these responses? Do these responses differ at different geographic locations?
Aquatic ecosystems have a profound impact on humankind and the biosphere, and can provide critical insight into biological questions. Using marine and freshwater organisms our research aims to mechanistically understand and predict rules of physiology and ecology. We examine physiology, vital rates and ocean biogeochemistry, including assessing the impacts of climate change. In our work we use diverse approaches including meta-analysis, experimentation, fieldwork and modelling.