Daniel Gomez Isaza

More and more data on species traits are being collected and made openly available. Despite these efforts, effective syntheses of trait data to comprehend how species respond to and affect their environment are hampered by inadequate standards for publishing the data and the associated metadata, which limits the interoperability and reuse of data across studies.

We have developed ShareTrait ( https://sharetrait.org/ ), a novel initiative that consolidates individual‐level trait data and associated metadata in an interoperable and reusable format, enabling standardised and integrated use. As a proof‐of‐concept, we initially focus on three core traits of ectotherms: metabolic rate, development time and fecundity. These traits, measurable in almost all animals, are fundamental to an organism’s overall fitness.

ShareTrait enables researchers to share their (meta)data with the research community. To date, researchers from diverse fields have contributed 28,692 individual‐level data records to ShareTrait. These records originated from 45 datasets and are just the tip of the iceberg of existing data, highlighting the potential of ShareTrait to be a valuable community resource for meta‐analyses and comparative approaches.

Future directions of ShareTrait will focus on accumulating more records, expanding to cover more traits, including those measurable at the population level, and partnering with journals in relevant fields (ecology, physiology, evolution) to make sharing standardised trait data part of the standard publication process.

We envision ShareTrait, along with its digital infrastructure and comprehensive metadata, to be a catalyst for collating trait data across species. ShareTrait can streamline research efforts, minimise duplication and empower researchers to explore patterns and broader ecological, evolutionary and physiological questions among taxa (e.g. via meta‐analyses and comparative approaches). This way, ShareTrait will unlock new frontiers in trait‐based approaches, enhancing our understanding of species–environment relationships.
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In the field of conservation physiology, there is often a trade off between conducting research in controlled laboratory settings or in inherently variable field environments. However, this belief sets up a false dichotomy where laboratory experiments are perceived as providing precise, mechanistic understanding with low variability at the cost of environmental realism while field studies are ecologically relevant but criticized for generating inconsistent evidence that is difficult to interpret and replicate. Despite the perceived binary view, these approaches are not in opposition to one another, but rather form a continuum along increasing ecological complexity. Here, we argue that it is possible to mindfully and purposefully design studies and develop integrative collaborations in conservation physiology that span the lab-field continuum to address pressing environmentally-relevant questions that can be used to inform policy and practice. We first outline the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to knowledge generation. We then highlight ways to bridge the lab-field divide though leveraging the advantages provided by different approaches to build a more comprehensive understanding of the natural world, including how recent technological advances can help connect lab- and field-based research. Next, we discuss the importance of partnership and collaboration across sectors for informing our understanding of ecological patterns and physiological processes. Finally, we reflect on how to best translate physiological research into action and the reciprocal role that environmental practitioners can have in driving research questions in conservation physiology.

In the Anthropocene, species are increasingly faced with multiple stressors that are more severe and less predictable than before. While multiple stressors often interact to affect organisms negatively, sometimes these interactions can be beneficial, enhancing resilience through cross-protection. Cross-protection interactions occur when exposure to one stressor, such as elevated temperature, enhances an organism’s tolerance to a different stressor, like hypoxia, through shared protective mechanisms or signaling pathways. Understanding the potential for cross-protection to combat rapid and diverse environmental change is crucial for conservation, as it potentially alters the predicted consequences of such change. Here, we outline 10 key considerations for investigating cross-protection in a conservation context. These considerations include the importance of stressor intensity and timing, recognizing species-specific and sex-specific responses, and embracing temporal variability in environmental stressors. Additionally, predictions will depend upon uncovering the underlying mechanisms of cross-protection by integrating emerging approaches like omics and meta-analyses. By better understanding—and in some cases explicitly leveraging—cross-protective interactions, conservation practitioners may be able to develop more effective management plans to enhance species resilience, potentially mitigating the immediate effects of emerging stressors. These insights are vital for guiding future research directions and informing conservation policies and management practices to preserve biodiversity in the Anthropocene.

Climate change is pushing temperatures towards intolerable limits for many fishes. Fish are ectothermic, or "cold-blooded", meaning that they function within a range of environmental temperatures, and exposure to extreme temperatures can become intolerable. The capacity of ectotherms to tolerate environmental warming has come into focus with ongoing climate change. Yet, we currently lack an understanding of how factors such as body size affects thermal limits, and whether different populations within a species differ in their capacity to cope with warming. To address this research gap, I used black bream (Acanthopagrus butcheri) to test two main hypotheses; first, that population-level differences exist in thermal tolerance, with northern populations being more tolerant of warming; and second; that thermal limits increase with increasing body size. Critical thermal maximum (CTmax) was used as a measure of heat tolerance to address the hypotheses. The first hypothesis was tested by measuring CTmax of fish from four distinct populations; a northern (Moore River), a mid-latitude (Serpentine River) and two southern (Blackwood River and Kalgan River) populations along a 5 degree latitudinal cline of the West Australian coastline. The influence of body mass on CTmax was tested in black bream across a ~500 g (mean = 52.4 g, range = 0.57 – 541 g) mass range. These data provide critical insight into the capacity of black bream to cope with environmental warming. These data highlight the importance of considering various factors when considering a species' vulnerability to climate change that can help prioritise conservation and management actions.

The inheritance of historic human-induced disruption and the fierceness of its impact change aquatic ecosystems. This work reviews some of the main stressors on freshwater ecosystems, focusing on their effects, threats, risks, protection, conservation, and management elements. An overview is provided on the water protection linked to freshwater stressors: solar ultraviolet radiation, thermal pollution, nanoparticles, radioactive pollution, salinization, nutrients, sedimentation, drought, extreme floods, fragmentation, pesticides, war and terrorism, algal blooms, invasive aquatic plants, riparian vegetation, and invasive aquatic fish. Altogether, these stressors build an exceptionally composite background of stressors that are continuously changing freshwater ecosystems and diminishing or even destroying their capability to create and maintain ongoing natural healthy products and essential services to humans. Environmental and human civilization sustainability cannot exist without the proper management of freshwater ecosystems all over the planet; this specific management is impossible if the widespread studied stressors are not deeply understood structurally and functionally. Without considering each of these stressors and their synergisms, the Earth’s freshwater is doomed in terms of both quantitative and qualitative aspects.

Climate warming is seeing temperatures breach exceptional thresholds as the frequency and intensity of heat waves increase. Efforts to forecast species vulnerability to climate warming often focus on upper thermal limits threatening survival, overlooking the role of intraspecific variation in determining vulnerability. Using an estuarine fish (black bream, Acanthopagrus butcheri) as a model, we explore how intraspecific variation in body mass and among populations affects upper thermal tolerance. Upper thermal limits were quantified using critical thermal maxima (CTmax) of wild fish. We used a ∼500 g (mean = 52.4 g, range = 0.57 – 541 g) mass range to test the relationship between body mass and thermal tolerance. Four distinct black bream populations were chosen along a 5° latitudinal cline to explore population differences in thermal limits. Contrary to expectations, there was no effect of body mass on upper thermal limits. However, significant population differences in thermal tolerance were observed that correlate with mean habitat temperatures. Specifically, the southern population had a significantly lower CTmax (35.57 ± 0.43 °C) compared to northern (36.32 ± 0.70 °C) and mid-latitude (36.36 ± 1.15 °C) populations. These data underscore the importance of observing intraspecific variation in thermal limits to reveal the capabilities of individuals within a species to cope with climate warming and improve the management of at-risk life stages and populations.
•Upper thermal limits of black bream were assessed along a 5° latitudinal cline•Upper thermal limits did not scale with body mass over a 500g range (0.57 – 541 g)•Mean annual temperature range best explained differences in CTmax•Southern population had a significantly lower CTmax compared to northern populations

Aquatic habitats encompass some of the most complex and dynamic environs on earth, leaving fish to navigate multiple, interacting stressors. Fish regularly contend with shifts in key environmental conditions in combination with biotic challenges and anthropogenic pressures. Stressors are becoming more numerous and severe owing to human pressures, and multi-stressor studies are critical to building an understanding of how fish physiology is affected by multivariate phenomena, like climate change. In this article, we explore how fish physiologically respond to multivariate changes in their environment, paying particular attention to non-additive stressor interactions where “ecophysiological surprises” are revealed.

Protective responses are pivotal in aiding organismal persistence in complex, multi-stressor environments. Multiple-stressor research has traditionally focused on the deleterious effects of exposure to concurrent stressors. However, encountering one stressor can sometimes confer heightened tolerance to a second stressor, a phenomenon termed ‘cross-protection’. Cross-protection has been documented in a wide diversity of taxa (spanning the bacteria, fungi, plant and animal kingdoms) and habitats (intertidal, freshwater, rainforests and polar zones) in response to many stressors (e.g. hypoxia, predation, desiccation, pathogens, crowding, salinity, food limitation). Remarkably, cross-protection benefits have also been shown among emerging, anthropogenic stressors, such as heatwaves and microplastics. In this Commentary, we discuss the mechanistic basis and adaptive significance of cross-protection, and put forth the idea that cross-protection will act as a ‘pre-adaptation’ to a changing world. We highlight the critical role that experimental biology has played in disentangling stressor interactions and provide advice for enhancing the ecological realism of laboratory studies. Moving forward, research will benefit from a greater focus on quantifying the longevity of cross-protection responses and the costs associated with this protective response. This approach will enable us to make robust predictions of species' responses to complex environments, without making the erroneous assumption that all stress is deleterious.