Food limitation erodes the thermal tolerance of larvae in an ecologically influential marine herbivore.

ABSTRACT: Biologists often use organismal thermal tolerance to help explain or forecast responses of populations to climate change. Yet many studies quantify thermal tolerance under isolated laboratory conditions despite extreme events, such as heatwaves, often coinciding with other stressors such as nutrient or food limitation. These oversights may be consequential as recent theory suggests thermal tolerance itself can be fundamentally altered by food limitation. Here, we experimentally test how food limitation (500-10,000 cells mL^-1) affects long-term survival, development, and growth across a present-day range of temperatures (10-20°C) in the most sensitive life stages of an important marine herbivore, purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus). We show food limitation substant

SUBMITTER: Munstermann MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12816818 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature