Congratulations Dr. Zakroff!

Congratulations to Dr. Casey Zakroff, who successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, “Physiological and behavioral responses, and their variability, in squid, Doryteuthis pealeii, embryos and paralarvae reared under chronic ocean acidification” on July 16. Casey was advised by Aran Mooney.

In his public defense, Casey shared the results from many, many experiments conducted over four years. A particular strength of this body of work was the multi-annual nature of the study, which revealed interannual variation in the sensitivity of squid paralarvae to acidification. Another very interesting finding was that elevated temperatures, which were stressful on their own, appeared to mitigate effects of acidification during development. Casey hypothesized that the reduced impact of acidification under warming is due to the faster development time, which reduced the actual time spent in acidified conditions.

A job very well done!