JONES, SJ*; WETHEY, DS; Univ South Carolina, Columbia; Univ South Carolina, Columbia: Climate and biogeography in the intertidal zone: experiments and models of species at their southern limits.

Geographic distributions of species may be influenced by climate. Somero (2002) has proposed that intertidal ecosystems will be among the first to display strong responses to changes in climatic conditions. We tested this idea with experimental manipulations of Mytilus edulis and Semibalanus balanoides, two arctic-boreal, sessile invertebrates whose southern limit is at Cape Hatteras, NC. Global warming is predicted to cause a poleward shift in species distribution, and this southern limit is likely to move further north. A transplant study was conducted to evaluate their growth and survival at this southern locale, and a thermal engineering model has been used to predict the body temperature of the organism and thus the degree to which their distribution may be limited under various climate scenarios.