Meeting Abstract

S3-1.0  Friday, Jan. 4  Aeroecology: Probing and Modeling the Aerosphere KUNZ, Thomas H.*; HRISTOV, Nickolay I.; Boston University; Boston University kunz@bu.edu

The aerosphere or planetary boundary layer of the Earth�s atmosphere provides a dynamic fluid medium that facilitates the daily and seasonal movements of birds, bats, insects. No organisms exclusively occupy the aerosphere, but many species spend significant portions of their lives in this environment in such a way that imposes strong selection pressures that have influenced traits such as wing size, shape, and flight mechanics that facilitate both passive and active movements. On both temporal and spatial scales, the aerosphere is more variable and dynamic than either the lithosphere or hydrosphere. Compared to organisms that depend strictly on terrestrial or aquatic existence, those that exploit the aerosphere are almost immediately influenced by changing atmospheric conditions (e.g., wind, air density, precipitation, air temperature, incident sunlight, polarized light, day length, moon light, geomagnetic and gravitational fields). Thus, many organisms that use the aerosphere have evolved highly specialized morphologies, behaviors, and physiological traits in response to these different selection pressures. Biologists who study organisms that use the aerosphere face three important challenges: 1) discovering how best to detect the presence, diversity, and activity of airborne organisms, 2) identifying ways to quantify these variables, and 3) determining how best to understand and interpret responses of organisms in the context of complex meteorological events and both natural and anthropogenic perturbations at different temporal and spatial scales. Efforts to address these challenges require the collaboration of scientists from diverse disciplines that have both used and developed tools to probe into the aerosphere both day and night, in arid and humid conditions, at low and high altitudes, in strong and weak magnetic fields, in cold and warm climates, and during calm and windy conditions.