Meeting Abstract
Black abalone (Haliotis cracherodii) were once a common intertidal inhabitant on rocky shores in California, but have experienced dramatic population declines and local extinctions due to overharvesting and the emergence of withering syndrome (WS). Susceptibility of black abalone to infection by WS is related to higher body temperature variability during aerial exposure at low tide, suggesting that temperature stress is a key risk factor determining their long-term viability. Our research is designed to quantify how body temperatures and associated risk of disease to black abalone might be altered in response to anthropogenic climate change. We created a heat-budget model for black abalone and coupled it with long-term meteorological records at Hopkins Marine Station (HMS) to generate information about environmental and topographic controls of body temperature at this site. Combined with published data on WS infection rates, we quantified how potential risk to abalone changes as a function of daily body temperature variation. We simultaneously collected real-time data across microhabitats at HMS on the distributions of body temperatures (Tb) of live abalone with a calibrated infrared camera and operative environmental temperatures (Te) with species-specific thermal mimics. These data will be combined to derive quantitative measures of the thermal quality of the habitat at HMS and the precision, accuracy, and effectiveness of thermoregulation by black abalone in the field.
