The processes and drivers of biotic responses to climate changes are poorly understood, especially in coastal oceans, even though it is well documented that organisms respond to environmental change. Identifying how organisms respond, why they respond, and to which environmental stressor(s) they are responding is integral to understanding the effects of future global warming on the modern biota, informing conservation efforts, and sustaining economically important fisheries. This study examines the role of temperature, productivity, and other environmental factors in the distribution, abundance, and physiological health of marine benthic organisms, and will directly test the role of physiological limits in determining community composition. This study will use a fossil record from the Early Miocene (~20-18 million-years-ago) to evaluate biotic responses to a well-documented global warming of ~4 degrees C. Benthic community change will be evaluated by tracking the relative abundance of species and changes in bivalve health will be tracked via changes in shell growth rates. Geochemical proxies, derived from molluscan and foraminiferal shells, will be used to reconstruct regional environmental changes and will allow determination of which components of climate are most responsible for the biological changes. Because this study utilizes a fossil record, the effects of climate change can be assessed over longer time scales than within modern ecology and without confounding anthropogenic factors such as pollution, eutrophication, or fishing. Undergraduate students will participate in field and laboratory components, with the option of independent research. A field trip guide with a "virtual" component will be generated to expose middle school through college students to paleobiological approaches to climate sciences. The University of Chicago biosciences outreach program provides a further avenue to disseminate scientific research to low-income, minority-dominated schools.
