Presented by Lou Burnett, Grice Marine Laboratory, College of Charleston and the Hollings Marine Laboratory
Date & time: Tuesday, 2 June 2015, 12:00pm ET
Link to register: http://bit.ly/1c0PWRf
Abstract
Animals living in coastal and estuarine waters along the southern coast of the United States experience dramatic changes in water chemistry and, in particular, they experience carbon dioxide levels far above those predicted in 2100 for the open ocean. This webinar will review the responses of select marine organisms to elevated CO2 showing some of the behavioral, immunological, and physiological responses. The changes organisms experience in CO2 can occur because of their behavior in addition to their habitat. Furthermore, CO2 in coastal waters is tightly linked to oxygen levels, such that during bouts of severe hypoxia waters become acidic. Organisms can adapt to hypoxia, but new evidence suggests that, at least in some crustaceans, adaptation to hypoxia is muted by elevated CO2.
Brief biography
Dr. Lou Burnett is a Professor of Biology at the Grice Marine Laboratory, College of Charleston and the Hollings Marine Laboratory. At the College of Charleston he was chair of the Dept. of Biology for five years and director of the Grice Marine Lab for 20 years. Before moving to Charleston in 1991, he was on the faculty at the University of San Diego for 13 years. He received his B.S. degree at the College of William and Mary, his Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina, and did postdoctoral research at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. He is currently the president of the Southern Association of Marine Laboratories and president-elect of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. Dr. Burnett has had a long-term interest in how animals adapt to estuarine environments, especially low oxygen and high CO2 environments.
