Joey R. Bernhardt

University of Guelph | UOGuelph

Temperature shapes the distribution, seasonality, and magnitude of mosquito-borne disease outbreaks. Mechanistic models predicting transmission often use mosquito and pathogen thermal responses from constant temperature experiments. However, mosquitoes live in fluctuating environments. Rate summation (nonlinear averaging) is a common approach to in...

The metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) aims to link biophysical constraints on individual metabolic rates to the emergence of patterns at the population and ecosystem scales. Because MTE links temperature’s kinetic effects on individual metabolism to ecological processes at higher levels of organization, it holds great potential to mechanistically p...

Open science skills are increasingly important for a career in ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB) as efforts to make data and analyses publicly available continue to become more commonplace. While learning core concepts in EEB, students are also expected to gain skills in conducting open science to prepare for future careers. Core open science...

Au cours des 25 dernières années, l’idée que les changements de biodiversité peuvent influencer le fonctionnement des écosystèmes a évolué d’une notion controversée à un concept pleinement accepté par les communautés scientifique et politique. Alors que ce domaine scientifique atteint sa maturité, il est temps d’évaluer les avancées réalisées, d’ex...

The effect of climate warming on community composition is expected to be contingent on competitive outcomes, yet approaches to projecting ecological outcomes often rely on measures of density‐independent performance across temperatures. Recent theory suggests that the temperature response of competitive ability differs in shape from that of populat...

Understanding how temperature determines the distribution of life is necessary to assess species' sensitivities to contemporary climate change. Here, we test the importance of temperature in limiting the geographic ranges of ectotherms by comparing the temperatures and areas that species occupy to the temperatures and areas species could potentiall...

Synopsis Human activities are rapidly changing ecosystems around the world. These changes have widespread implications for the preservation of biodiversity, agricultural productivity, prevalence of zoonotic diseases, and sociopolitical conflict. To understand and improve the predictive capacity for these and other biological phenomena, some scienti...

While disaster events are consequential, they are rare. Ecological risk assessment processes tend to estimate risk through an “expected value” lens that focuses on the most probable events, which can drastically underappreciate the importance of rare events. Here, we show that expected value and average risk-based calculations underappreciate disas...

Open science skills are increasingly important for a career in ecology and evolution as efforts to make data and analyses publicly available and transparent continue to become more commonplace. However, open science skills are not typically taught in biology undergraduate programs. In learning core concepts in ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB)...

Understanding how temperature determines the distribution of life is necessary to assess species’ sensitivities to contemporary climate change. Here we test the importance of temperature in limiting the geographic ranges of ectotherms by comparing the temperatures and areas that species occupy to the temperatures and areas species could potentially...

Thermal variability is a key driver of ecological processes, affecting organisms and populations across multiple temporal scales. Despite the ubiquity of variation, biologists lack a quantitative synthesis of the observed ecological consequences of thermal variability across a wide range of taxa, phenotypic traits and experimental designs. Here, we...

Despite the key role of biotic interactions in structuring ecological communities, their influence is often overlooked in predictions of how communities respond to environmental change. Here, we present an experiment that tests hypotheses based on metacommunity theory about how abiotic responses, biotic interactions, and dispersal jointly determine...

The effect of climate warming on future community composition is expected to be contingent on competitive outcomes, yet we currently lack mechanistic ecological understanding of how temperature affects competitive ability. Here, we combine resource competition theory with metabolic scaling theory and test hypotheses about how the temperature depend...

This chapter reviews the role experiments have played in advancing biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) knowledge. In BEF experiments, the defining feature is that some measure of diversity – species richness, functional diversity – is manipulated as the independent fixed variable and response variables related to ecosystem functioning are...

Forecasting how climate change will impact biological systems represents a grand challenge for biologists. However, climate change biology lacks an effective framework for anticipating and resolving uncertainty. Here, we introduce the concept of climate change wildcards: biological or bioclimatic processes with a high degree of uncertainty and a la...

The nutritional diversity of resources can affect the adaptive evolution of consumer metabolism and consumer diversification. The omega-3 long-chain polyun-saturated fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA; 20:5n-3) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; 22:6n-3) have a high potential to affect consumer fitness, through their widespread effects on reproduct...

Significance Food security is not simply about maintaining yields, but it is also about the need for a stable supply of nutritionally diverse foods. Obtaining nutritious food is a major challenge facing humanity, and diverse aquatic ecosystems can help meet this goal. To test how aquatic biodiversity affects human health, we assembled a dataset of...

Understanding and predicting responses of ectothermic animals to temperature are essential for decision-making and management. The thermal performance curve (TPC), which quantifies the thermal sensitivity of traits such as metabolism, growth and feeding rates in laboratory conditions, is often used to predict responses of wild populations. However,...

Transfer efficiency is the proportion of energy passed between nodes in food webs. It is an emergent, unitless property that is difficult to measure, and responds dynamically to environmental and ecosystem changes. Because the consequences of changes in transfer efficiency compound through ecosystems, slight variations can have large effects on foo...

Variability in the environment defines the structure and dynamics of all living systems, from organisms to ecosystems. Species have evolved traits and strategies that allow them to detect, exploit and predict the changing environment. These traits allow organisms to maintain steady internal conditions required for physiological functioning through...

Variability in the environment defines the structure and dynamics of all living systems. Organisms have evolved traits and strategies that allow them to detect, exploit and predict the changing environment. Organisms maintain steady internal conditions required for physiological functioning through feedback mechanisms that allow internal conditions...

Physiological responses to ocean acidification are thought to be related to energetic trade‐offs. Although a number of studies have proposed that negative responses to low pH could be minimized in situations where food resources are more readily available, evidence for such effects on individuals remain mixed, and the consequences of such effects a...

Competition for limiting resources is among the most fundamental ecological interactions and has long been considered a key driver of species coexistence and biodiversity. Species' minimum resource requirements, their R *s, are key traits that link individual physiological demands to the outcome of competition. However, a major question remains una...

Competition for limiting resources is among the most fundamental ecological interactions and has long been considered a key driver of species coexistence and biodiversity. Species' minimum resource requirements, their R*, are key traits that link individual physiological demands to the outcome of competition. However, a major question remains unans...

Humanity depends on biodiversity for health, well-being and a stable environment. As biodiversity change accelerates, we are still discovering the full range of consequences for human health and well-being. Here, we test the hypothesis -- derived from biodiversity - ecosystem functioning theory -- that species richness and ecological functional div...

Climate change is impacting marine ecosystems and their goods and services in diverse ways, which can directly hinder our ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set out under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Through expert elicitation and a literature review, we find that most climate change effects have a wide var...

Understanding whether populations and communities can evolve fast enough to keep up with ongoing climate change is one of the most pressing issues in biology today. A growing number of studies have documented rapid evolutionary responses to warming, suggesting that populations may be able to persist despite temperature increases. The challenge now...

The temperature dependence of highly conserved subcellular metabolic systems affects ecological patterns and processes across scales, from organisms to ecosystems. Population density at carrying capacity plays an important role in evolutionary processes, biodiversity, and ecosystem function, yet how it varies with temperature-dependent metabolism r...

As thermal regimes change worldwide, projections of future population and species persistence often require estimates of how population growth rates depend on temperature. These projections rarely account for how temporal variation in temperature can systematically modify growth rates relative to projections based on constant temperatures. Here, we...

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper.

Because many of the negative effects of ocean acidification on marine life may result from underlying energetic short-falls associated with increased metabolic demands, several studies have hypothesized that negative responses to high CO2 could be reduced by energy input. Although this hypothesis was supported by a recent meta-analysis, we believe...

As thermal regimes change worldwide, projections of future population and species persistence often require estimates of how population growth rates depend on temperature. These projections rarely account for how temporal variation in temperature can systematically modify growth rates relative to projections based on constant temperatures. Here, we...

Predicting population persistence and dynamics in the context of global change is a major challenge for ecology. A widely held prediction is that population abundance at carrying capacity decreases with warming, assuming no change in resource supply, due to increased individual resource demands associated with higher metabolic rates. However, this...

Both body size and temperature directly influence consumer-resource dynamics. There is also widespread empirical evidence for the temperature-size rule (TSR), which creates a negative relationship between temperature and body size. However, it is not known how the TSR affects community dynamics. Here we integrate temperature- and size-dependent mod...

Businesses may be missing opportunities to account for ecosystem services in their decisions, because they do not have methods to quantify and value ecosystem services. We developed a method to quantify and value coastal protection and other ecosystem services in the context of a cost-benefit analysis of hurricane risk mitigation options for a busi...

While there have been rapid advances in assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES), a critical remaining challenge is how to move from scientific knowledge to real-world decision making. We offer 6 lessons from our experiences applying new approaches and tools for quantifying BES in 20 pilot demonstrations: (1) Applying a BES approach...

We report on patterns of abundance, recruitment, and predation on the blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) in three human-dominated estuaries in the northeastern United States. Through replicate field experiments and observational studies at multiple sites nested within each of the three estuaries, we investigated the relative influences of local and regio...

Integrated coastal and ocean management requires transparent and accessible approaches for understanding the influence of human activities on marine environments. Here we introduce a model for assessing the combined risk to habitats from multiple ocean uses. We apply the model to coral reefs, mangrove forests and seagrass beds in Belize to inform t...

The limited understanding of how ecosystem service knowledge (ESK) is used in decision making constrains our ability to learn from, replicate, and convey success stories. We explore use of ESK in decision making in three international cases: national coastal planning in Belize; regional marine spatial planning on Vancouver Island, Canada; and regio...

People rely on oceans and lands to provide us with a diversity of benefits—food, fuel, inspiration, etc.—yet often times these values are ignored in public decision-making. Clearly articulating these benefits can facilitate honest and transparent decision-making that fosters positive outcomes for human wellbeing and biodiversity. I will discuss som...

Background/Question/Methods Quantifying ecosystem services is often promoted as a way to measure progress towards ecosystem based management goals. In a unique partnership between academics, NGO’s, and a public-private management body, we have put this concept to work on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. After extensive stakeholder engagement t...

Background/Question/Methods The impacts of human activities in coastal areas, both on land and in the ocean, are pervasive in coastal ecosystems. Recent global analyses have revealed that almost no area of the world’s oceans is untouched by human impacts. A challenge to implementing integrated approaches to ocean management is knowing how to scre...

Ecosystem services research has been focused on the ways that humans directly benefit from goods and services, and economic valuation techniques have been used to measure those benefits. We argue that, although it is appropriate in some cases, this focus on direct use and economic quantification is often limiting and can detract from environmental...

Many hope that ocean waves will be a source for clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy, yet wave energy conversion facilities may affect marine ecosystems through a variety of mechanisms, including competition with other human uses. We developed a decision-support tool to assist siting wave energy facilities, which allows the user to balance t...

Background/Question/Methods Consumer pressure plays a major role in structuring many biological communities. However, the relative importance of consumers is context dependent, shifting with environmental factors (e.g. species identity, system productivity) and anthropogenic impacts. We used a manipulative consumer-exclusion experiment to examine...

Background/Question/Methods Our oceans are peopled, and have been for thousands of years. Climate change and other human stressors are altering the ecosystems that have long supported livelihoods in coastal communities, yet our understanding of the ecology and management of coastal ecosystems still does not integrate human wellbeing, ecology and...

People around the world are looking to marine ecosystems to provide additional benefits to society. As they consider expanding current uses and investing in new ones, new management approaches are needed that will sustain the delivery of the diverse benefits that people want and need. An ecosystem services framework provides metrics for assessing t...

Developing Scenarios to Assess Ecosystem Service Tradeoffs: guidance and Case Studies for InVEST Users is a resource for practitioners who want to assess the provision of ecosystem services under alternative future scenarios. The guide draws on case experiences where InVEST was used to compare ecosystem service tradeoffs under different scenarios....

Ecological resilience to climate change is a combination of resistance to increasingly frequent and severe disturbances, capacity for recovery and selforganization, and ability to adapt to new conditions. Here, we focus on three broad categories of ecological properties that underlie resilience: diversity, connectivity, and adaptive capacity. Diver...

Background/Question/Methods The rugged west coast of Vancouver Island British Columbia, Canada boasts plentiful populations of fish and shellfish, pristine beaches for surfing, kayaking, and diving, and large ocean waves that can be harnessed for renewable energy. Some stakeholders are eager to expand coastal development to support tourism, renew...

Variation in physical factors, such as slope, orientation, and wind exposure, shapes thermal conditions. Variation in substrate size is common in many habitats, but its thermal consequences for organisms are not well characterized. Larger substrates should remain more thermally stable and act as thermal refuges for associated organisms during short...

Background/Question/Methods Summer temperatures can impose lethal stresses on rocky intertidal organisms and are influenced by substrate characteristics such as orientation and slope. Here, we show that rock size plays an even more important role than these other factors in determining rock temperatures and influencing the distribution of intertid...