Thursday/Jeudi, May/Mai 9
11:00-12:00
Boutillier Award Lecture/Conférence du Prix Boutillier
New Investigator award/Prix Nouveau Chercheur
Location/Lieu: Ballroom A and B
Chair/Animé par: Carol Bucking (York University, CSZ president)
Katie Marshall, Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia
Dr. Marshall grew up in the small town of Elmira, Ontario. She attended Acadia University for her undergraduate, then began graduate studies with Brent Sinclair at Western University. She completed her PhD in 2013, had a short post-doc with Jennifer Baltzer at Wilfrid Laurier University, then received a Killam postdoctoral fellowship to work at UBC with Chris Harley. She then began a faculty position at the University of Oklahoma in 2016, then headed to the comparative physiology group at UBC in 2018 where she is now an associate professor.
Chair/Animé par: Carol Bucking (York University, CSZ president)
Katie Marshall, Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia
Dr. Marshall grew up in the small town of Elmira, Ontario. She attended Acadia University for her undergraduate, then began graduate studies with Brent Sinclair at Western University. She completed her PhD in 2013, had a short post-doc with Jennifer Baltzer at Wilfrid Laurier University, then received a Killam postdoctoral fellowship to work at UBC with Chris Harley. She then began a faculty position at the University of Oklahoma in 2016, then headed to the comparative physiology group at UBC in 2018 where she is now an associate professor.
Hot topics in "cool" adaptations: how Canada's invertebrates survive the winter
While the effects of climate change on heat exposures are well-documented, on the opposite end of the scale--the cold--there are also significant shifts. Cold tolerance more directly sets range limits than heat tolerance, and winters are shifting in temperature much more rapidly than summer. Yet we still know relatively little about the mechanisms of cold tolerance in many organisms, and even less about the potential for poleward range expansions in invertebrates under climate change. The work in my laboratory has focused on two main models systems for exploring these ideas: the eastern spruce budworm Choristoneura fumiferana, and the many freeze tolerant animals of the West Coast intertidal zone. The eastern spruce budworm is Canada’s most destructive forest insect pests, and is on the move with climate change. Over the past six years, our lab group has explored how plasticity in cold tolerance has evolved in spruce budworm, finding that populations vary in their ability to modulate glycolysis to increase glycerol production. In the intertidal zone, where freezing is unavoidable, we have explored how cold tolerance can evolve when osmolarity cannot be increased to improve tolerance. We found that ice binding protein activity is ubiquitous, and small compatible solutes like TMAO can be upregulated to improve freeze tolerance. Taken together, our work has shown that by looking at the cold end of the temperature scale can yield new insights into adaptive evolution.
While the effects of climate change on heat exposures are well-documented, on the opposite end of the scale--the cold--there are also significant shifts. Cold tolerance more directly sets range limits than heat tolerance, and winters are shifting in temperature much more rapidly than summer. Yet we still know relatively little about the mechanisms of cold tolerance in many organisms, and even less about the potential for poleward range expansions in invertebrates under climate change. The work in my laboratory has focused on two main models systems for exploring these ideas: the eastern spruce budworm Choristoneura fumiferana, and the many freeze tolerant animals of the West Coast intertidal zone. The eastern spruce budworm is Canada’s most destructive forest insect pests, and is on the move with climate change. Over the past six years, our lab group has explored how plasticity in cold tolerance has evolved in spruce budworm, finding that populations vary in their ability to modulate glycolysis to increase glycerol production. In the intertidal zone, where freezing is unavoidable, we have explored how cold tolerance can evolve when osmolarity cannot be increased to improve tolerance. We found that ice binding protein activity is ubiquitous, and small compatible solutes like TMAO can be upregulated to improve freeze tolerance. Taken together, our work has shown that by looking at the cold end of the temperature scale can yield new insights into adaptive evolution.