Thermal Tolerance in Juvenile Winter Flounder, Pseudopleuronectes americanus, in Northeastern United States Coastal Waters
Warming estuaries driven by climate change pose a risk for the early life stages of coastal fish species. My thesis involved understanding and quantifying such a risk. I conducted a common garden experiment on over 100 young-of-the-year winter flounder from three separate estuary systems along the Southern New England and Mid-Atlantic Bight region, and measured growth and ventilation rates under varying temperature treatments. My subsequent work focused on determining how thermal-based physiological responses in winter flounder differed and compared among subpopulations, understanding how other external environmental factors impact the current state of the stock, illustrating how thermal habitat suitability for these fish has evolved over time along this region, and finally, characterizing what implications my findings have on winter flounder juvenile life history as a whole.
Principal Investigators: Dr. Michael Frisk & Dr. Anne McElroy
Students: Geresea Leigh-Luke M.S.