Sarah Davies, "Mechanisms for coping with environmental change in reef-building corals" Abstract: Organisms can exhibit four possible response strategies to changing climate: i) disperse to new, more favorable environments, ii) acclimate to current conditions by modifying their physiologies, iii) adapt through natural selection on standing genetic variation, or iv) remain local but suffer reduced fitness. By integrating ecology, population genetics and genomics, my research focuses on understanding patterns of genetic exchange and the potential for acclimation and adaptation to climate change using reef-building corals and their algal symbionts as models. In this talk I will discuss the potential for dispersal in corals, their acclimation capacity to climate change, which can be mediated through physiological and transcriptomic modifications, and the potential for thermal adaptation through selection on standing genetic variation in thermal tolerance. I find that corals indeed have the capacity for dispersal, acclimation and adaptation, however there appears to be limits and tradeoffs to these response strategies. My research has begun to resolve the degree to which corals can survive and adapt to changing oceans with implications for predicting reef persistence in the face of rapid environmental change.