About

Lauren Buckley is a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. Her research combines modeling, field and laboratory collection of ecological and physiological data, and ecoinformatics to examine how biological traits such as morphology, physiology, and life history influence an organism’s ecological and evolutionary responses to environmental change. Her work integrates approaches from physiological ecology, evolution, population and community ecology, and biogeography, with a focus on characterizing how organisms experience and respond to fine-scale spatial and temporal environmental variation. Her recent research involves repeating functional experiments and observations on montane insects after several decades of climate change to assess ecological and evolutionary responses and to test predictive models. She leads projects like the TrEnCh project, which develops computational and visualization tools to translate environmental change into organismal responses, thereby enhancing ecological and evolutionary forecasting. Her questions include understanding how local adaptation influences responses to climate change, how thermoregulatory behavior affects thermal tolerance evolution, and how developmental plasticity impacts phenology and demography in changing environments. Her extensive publication record reflects her contributions to understanding the impacts of climate variability and change on ecological and evolutionary processes.

Research topics

• Biology
• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Environmental resource management
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Engineering ethics
• Physics
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Beyond Mean TDT 2025

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-04-01

  otherOpen accessSenior author

  Code and associated data corresponding to the manuscript 'Moving beyond mean thermal death times to assess organismal responses to stressful temperatures'

  PublisherDOI

• Beyond Mean TDT 2025

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-04-01

  otherOpen accessSenior author

  Code and associated data corresponding to the manuscript 'Moving beyond mean thermal death times to assess organismal responses to stressful temperatures'

  PublisherDOI

• Moving beyond mean thermal death times to assess organismal responses to stressful temperatures

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-01-16

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Predicting survival of ectotherms in stressful and variable thermal environments is an essential challenge in this era of heat waves and climate change. Recent thermal death time (TDT) models, based on an exponential relationship between average time to death (or failure) t f and temperature, enable accounting for average survival responses to both the magnitude and duration of stressful temperatures. However, extending these deterministic and probabilistic models to predict patterns of survival in fluctuating temperatures currently requires additional assumptions: e.g. that injury accumulation due to heat stress is additive across temperatures, and that the shape of the cumulative survival curve does not change with temperature. We evaluate these assumptions and their consequences by using a parametric survival model and available data on failure (knockdown) times of adult Drosophila. We find that the variance in log(t f ) increases with increasing constant temperatures in most Drosophila species, resulting in changes in shape of the failure density and survival curves across temperatures. We compare predictions of three deterministic and probabilistic models that differ in their TDT assumptions using D. melanogaster data in fluctuating (but stressful) temperatures. All three models consistently underestimate observed median failure times except at extremely high temperatures, suggesting non-additivity of heat injury accumulation. Our parametric model, incorporating temperature-dependent variance, provides more accurate predictions of cumulative survival curves in fluctuating temperatures. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding both mean and variation in failure times, and how these change across temperatures, for modeling survival in fluctuating thermal environments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Biodiversity science and policy need more model intercomparisons

  Nature Reviews Biodiversity · 2026-02-06 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Incorporating variation in death times improves predictions of ectotherm responses to stressful temperatures

  PLoS Biology · 2026-05-21

  articleOpen access

  Predicting survival of ectotherms in stressful and variable thermal environments is an essential challenge in this era of heat waves and climate change. Recent thermal death time (TDT) models, based on an exponential relationship between average time to death (or failure) tf and temperature, enable accounting for average survival responses to both the magnitude and duration of stressful temperatures. However, extending these deterministic and probabilistic models to predict patterns of survival in fluctuating temperatures currently requires additional assumptions: e.g., that injury accumulation due to heat stress is additive across temperatures, and that the shape of the cumulative survival curve does not change with temperature. We evaluate these assumptions and their consequences by using a parametric survival model and available data on failure (knockdown) times of adult Drosophila. We find that the variance in log(tf) increases with increasing constant temperatures in most Drosophila species, resulting in changes in the shape of the failure density and survival curves across temperatures. We compare predictions of three deterministic and probabilistic models that differ in their TDT assumptions using D. melanogaster data in fluctuating (but stressful) temperatures. All three models consistently underestimate observed median failure times except at extremely high temperatures, suggesting non-additivity of heat injury accumulation. Our parametric model, incorporating temperature-dependent variance, provides more accurate predictions of cumulative survival curves in fluctuating temperatures. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding both mean and variation in failure times, and how these change across temperatures, for modeling survival in fluctuating thermal environments.

  PublisherDOI

• Evolution of plasticity and adaptive responses to climate change along climate gradients

  UNC Libraries · 2025-01-15 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The relative contributions of phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution to the responses of species to recent and future climate change are poorly understood. We combine recent (1960-2010) climate and phenotypic data with microclimate, heat balance, demographic and evolutionary models to address this issue for a montane butterfly, <em>Colias eriphyle</em>, along an elevational gradient. Our focal phenotype, wing solar absorptivity, responds plastically to developmental (pupal) temperatures and plays a central role in thermoregulatory adaptation in adults. Here, we show that both the phenotypic and adaptive consequences of plasticity vary with elevation. Seasonal changes in weather generate seasonal variation in phenotypic selection on mean and plasticity of absorptivity, especially at lower elevations. In response to climate change in the past 60 years, our models predict evolutionary declines in mean absorptivity (but little change in plasticity) at high elevations, and evolutionary increases in plasticity (but little change in mean) at low elevation. The importance of plasticity depends on the magnitude of seasonal variation in climate relative to interannual variation. Our results suggest that selection and evolution of both trait means and plasticity can contribute to adaptive response to climate change in this system. They also illustrate how plasticity can facilitate rather than retard adaptive evolutionary responses to directional climate change in seasonal environments.

  PublisherDOI

• Insect Development, Thermal Plasticity and Fitness Implications in Changing, Seasonal Environments

  UNC Libraries · 2025-01-15

  articleOpen access

  Historical data show that recent climate change has caused advances in seasonal timing (phenology) in many animals and plants, particularly in temperate and higher latitude regions. The population and fitness consequences of these phenological shifts for insects and other ectotherms have been heterogeneous: warming can increase development rates and the number of generations per year (increasing fitness), but can also lead to seasonal mismatches between animals and their resources and increase exposure to environmental variability (decreasing fitness). Insect populations exhibit local adaptation in their developmental responses to temperature, including lower developmental thresholds and the thermal requirements to complete development, but climate change can potentially disrupt seasonal timing of juvenile and adult stages and alter population fitness. We investigate these issues using a global dataset describing how insect developmental responds to temperature via two traits: lower temperature thresholds for development (T0) and the cumulative degree-days required to complete development (G). As suggested by previous analyses, T0 decreases and G increases with increasing (absolute) latitude; however, these traits and the relationship between G and latitude varies significantly among taxonomic orders. The mean number of generations per year (a metric of fitness) increases with both decreasing T0 and G, but the effects of these traits on fitness vary strongly with latitude, with stronger selection on both traits at higher (absolute) latitudes. We then use the traits to predict developmental timing and temperatures for multiple generations within seasons and across years (1970-2010). Seasonality drives developmental temperatures to peak mid-season and for generation lengths to decline across seasons, particularly in temperate regions. We predict that climate warming has advanced phenology and increased the number of generations, particularly at high latitudes. The magnitude of increases in developmental temperature varies little across latitude. Increases in the number of seasonal generations have been greatest for populations experiencing the greatest phenological advancements and warming. Shifts in developmental rate and timing due to climate change will have complex implications for selection and fitness in seasonal environments.

  PublisherDOI

• How Damage, Recovery, and Repair Alter the Fitness Impacts of Thermal Stress

  Integrative and Comparative Biology · 2025-05-13 · 11 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The fitness implications of climate variability and change are often estimated by integrating an organism's thermal sensitivity of performance across a time series of experienced body temperatures. Although this approach is an important first step in evaluating an organism's sensitivity to climate or climate change, it ignores potential influences of recent exposure to thermal stress on current thermal sensitivity. Here, we account for recent thermal stress by estimating rates of damage, repair, and other carryover effects; and we illustrate the approach with fecundity and development rate data from experiments that exposed aphids to various stressful and fluctuating temperatures. Our analyses indicate that heat stress for these aphids starts near the upper thermal limit for performance; that heat stress intensifies with both the exposure duration and with temperature; and that there is considerable capacity for repair at temperatures near the thermal optimum for performance. Results from experiments with aphids indicate that incorporating time series of damage, recovery, and repair will be necessary to anticipate fitness outcomes of climate change and variability.

  PublisherDOI

• Evolution of Thermal Sensitivity in Changing and Variable Climates

  Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · 2025-01-15 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Evolutionary adaptation to temperature and climate depends on both the extent to which organisms experience spatial and temporal environmental variation (exposure) and how responsive they are to the environmental variation (sensitivity). Theoretical models and experiments suggesting substantial potential for thermal adaptation have largely omitted realistic environmental variation. Environmental variation can drive fluctuations in selection that slow adaptive evolution. We review how carefully filtering environmental conditions based on how organisms experience their environment and further considering organismal sensitivity can improve predictions of thermal adaptation. We contrast taxa differing in exposure and sensitivity. Plasticity can increase the rate of evolutionary adaptation in taxa exposed to pronounced environmental variation. However, forms of plasticity that severely limit exposure, such as behavioral thermoregulation and phenological shifts, can hinder thermal adaptation. Despite examples of rapid thermal adaptation, experimental studies often reveal evolutionary constraints. Further investigating these constraints and issues of timescale and thermal history are needed to predict evolutionary adaptation and, consequently, population persistence in changing and variable environments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Using museum specimens to track morphological shifts through climate change

  UNC Libraries · 2025-01-15

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Museum specimens offer a largely untapped resource for detecting morphological shifts in response to climate change. However, morphological shifts can be obscured by shifts in phenology or distribution or sampling biases. Additionally, interpreting phenotypic shifts requires distinguishing whether they result from plastic or genetic changes. Previous studies using collections have documented consistent historical size changes, but the limited studies of other morphological traits have often failed to support, or even test, hypotheses. We explore the potential of collections by investigating shifts in the functionally significant coloration of a montane butterfly, <em>Colias meadii,</em> over the past 60 years within three North American geographical regions. We find declines in ventral wing melanism, which correspond to reduced absorption of solar radiation and thus reduced risk of overheating, in two regions. However, contrary to expected responses to climate warming, we find melanism increases in the most thoroughly sampled region. Relationships among temperature, phenology and morphology vary across years and complicate the distinction between plastic and genetic responses. Differences in these relationships may account for the differing morphological shifts among regions. Our findings highlight the promise of using museum specimens to test mechanistic hypotheses for shifts in functional traits, which is essential for deciphering interacting responses to climate change.This article is part of the theme issue 'Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene'.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Incorporating Physiological Variation in Mechanistic Range Models for Ecological Forecasting

  NSF · $181k · 2013–2016

• Collaborative Research: Incorporating Physiological Variation in Mechanistic Range Models for Ecological Forecasting

  NSF · $212k · 2011–2013

• CAREER: Computational and visualization tools for translating climate change into ecological impacts

  NSF · $1.2M · 2014–2022

• Collaborative Research: RoL: Detecting and predicting the relative contributions of fecundity and survival to fitness in changing environments

  NSF · $528k · 2020–2025

Frequent coauthors

• Joel G. Kingsolver

  36 shared

• Pippa J. Moore

  Newcastle University

  21 shared

• Benjamin S. Halpern

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  21 shared

• Anthony J. Richardson

  University of Queensland

  20 shared

• Carlos M. Duarte

  King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

  20 shared

• César R. Nufio

  Howard Hughes Medical Institute

  20 shared

• T. Jonathan Davies

  University of British Columbia

  18 shared

• John M. Pandolfi

  University of Queensland

  17 shared