Collaborative Research: Intergenerational effects of predation risk and resource identity on rocky shores: consequences for populations, communities, and ecosystems

About This Grant

Intergenerational plasticity -- when environments experienced by one generation affect traits expressed by later generations -- is increasingly recognized for its ability to impact species’ responses to environmental stress. Predators are one of the most ubiquitous sources of stress in nature, and the effects of predation risk on prey can scale up to have broader impacts on communities and ecosystems. Intergenerational plasticity can also alter prey responses to predators in subtle but important ways, but these effects may vary across different environments, particularly across different resource landscapes. This project uses a rocky shore food chain to examine how parental exposure to predation risk under different resource regimes influences offspring prey fitness and how risk-induced intergenerational effects scale up to alter population dynamics, community structure, and ecosystem function. Because intergenerational plasticity often affects these same traits, it may elicit changes at larger biological scales that are currently unaccounted for. This project engages undergraduate and graduate students in authentic, discovery-driven research. Additional rocky shore exploration activities with K-12 students support discovery-based learning and ocean literacy for all. Organisms often respond to environmental change by altering their phenotype, with consequences that scale beyond individuals to impact populations, communities, and ecosystems. In many systems, prey respond to predator exposure via phenotypic plasticity, altering their traits and behaviors in adaptive ways that affect community and ecosystem dynamics, though specific responses to risk can be highly context dependent. Intergenerational plasticity is increasingly recognized for its ability to impact organismal responses to biotic and abiotic stressors, including predation risk. However, little is known about how intergenerational plasticity operates across different ecological contexts, particularly in the parent generation, limiting our ability to predict its relevance in natural systems. This research explores how resource identity -- a critical driver of prey responses to current predation risk -- impacts intergenerational effects of risk on rocky shores and the consequences of this risk-induced intergenerational plasticity for individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems. On New England rocky shores, the snail Nucella lapillus responds to predation risk from the green crab Carcinus maenas both within and across generations by altering its foraging on barnacles and mussels, two species that play important but distinct roles in intertidal community dynamics. Through a series of manipulative field and lab experiments, the study tests how intergenerational effects of predation risk operate across different resource landscapes to influence prey demographic traits and foraging choices and the emergent impacts on community structure and ecosystem function. This work advances our understanding of intergenerational plasticity and how it operates in dynamic systems to affect population, community, and ecosystem dynamics. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.