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Synopsis In response to rapidly changing environmental conditions, many organisms are experiencing shifts in geographic ranges and in the timing and expression of key life-history traits, which have important effects on fitness. However, the physiological mechanisms that mediate these phenotypic responses, such as endocrine and other signaling pathways are not well understood. This information will be critical for predicting organismal responses to climate change because physiological mechanisms are often highly responsive to environmental cues and influence the phenotypic variation available to selection. Additionally, they often integrate suites of correlated traits and are thus expected to influence the evolutionary response to selection. The overarching goals of this symposium were to gain novel insights into the physiological mechanisms that underlie organismal responses to rapidly changing environmental conditions and to identify gaps in knowledge and experimental approaches to advance the field. Here we review and discuss the symposium contributions and the research themes that emerged as important foci for future studies.
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Introduction to the Symposium: Stress Phenotype: Linking Molecular, Cellular, and Physiological Stress Responses to Fitness
Abstract Although most organisms respond to environmental and social stressors by initiating a stress response that is expected to increase fitness, we currently lack information about how the stress response is integrated across levels of biological organization. Organismal biologists and physiological ecologists have tended to focus on questions related to how the glucocorticoid stress response varies across ecological contexts and is related to fitness, whereas, molecular and cellular biologists have typically investigated the fundamental underlying mechanisms. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of the stress response will require integrative studies that span levels of analyses. This information will be critical for predicting how selection will influence the expression of this complex phenotype at the organismal level, as well as how the integration of the underlying mechanisms will influence the evolutionary response to selection. As diverse organisms are expected to experience rising stress exposure in the face of anthropogenic disturbance and climate change, this information is becoming increasingly urgent. The overarching goals of this symposium were to bring together researchers that study the stress response across levels of organization in diverse organisms to identify important gaps in knowledge and novel research approaches that could be used to advance the field.
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- PAR ID:
- 10115744
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Integrative and Comparative Biology
- Volume:
- 59
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1540-7063
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 237-242
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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