In nature, animals contend with numerous abiotic and biotic environmental challenges simultaneously. For instance, animals must cope with variations in temperature, ultraviolet radiation and food availability, while also competing with others for resources, avoiding predation and defending against pathogens. Scientific research is often aimed at understanding how these environmental challenges, on their own, affect the ability of animals to survive, grow and reproduce. However, I am interested in understanding how animals respond when confronted with multiple environmental challenges simultaneously. To address this aim, I use laboratory-based experiments to measure the physiological, morphological, and behavioural responses of animals to different environmental challenges alone and in combination. I study how animals respond to these environmental challenges both within their lifetime and after several generations – their phenotypic and adaptive response, respectively. The outcomes of my research are important for informing policymakers and conservation efforts about how human-mediated environmental change may threaten wildlife.

Biography

Dr Alton is an animal physiologist in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University. She was awarded a Bachelor of Science with Honours in 2004 from The University of Adelaide where she studied gas exchange patterns in air-breathing fish for her Honours research. She then worked as a Research Officer at the South Australian Research and Development Institute where she contributed to studies of the water quality tolerances of the early life stages of fishes in the Lower River Murray. In 2007, she began her PhD candidature at The University of Queensland where she studied the effects of ultraviolet radiation on amphibians. She was awarded her doctorate in Conservation Physiology in 2012 and worked as a Research Assistant before taking up her current position as a Research Fellow at Monash University in 2015. Her current research focuses on the metabolic and behavioural responses of ectotherms to climate warming.