KRUG LAB - EVOLUTIONARY AND LARVAL ECOLOGY OF MARINE INVERTEBRATES
Hannah Koch, M.S. 2012;
Ph.D. 2016 (Max Planck Institute)
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For her M.S. thesis, Hanna studied local adaptation to low salinity stress at the northern range limit of an estuarine sea slug. She demonstrated that range-edge populations had evolved greater tolerance to low salinity than range-center populations, an adaptive response to higher rainfall and freshwater runoff in northern California. Hanna reared offspring in the laboratory for two generations and showed that range-edge lines inherited their
grandparents' superior tolerance for exposure to freshwater, demonstrating local adaptation due to natural selection. Maternal effects and phenotypic plasticity made only minor contributions to the tolerance of edge populations. Her results will be used to model how intertidal taxa may respond to changes in seasonal rainfall and snowmelt predicted for California.
Hanna won 1st place at 26th annual statewide California State University Student Research Competition (graduate division, Biological Sciences) for her presentation, Koch, H. and Krug, P.J. “Local adaptation and northern range limit for an estuarine sea slug, Alderia willowi.” She received a competitive NSF-sponsored GK-12 fellowship through our program 'ImpactL.A.' and worked in a local middle school science classroom from 2011-2012 while completing her M.S. She completed a Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute for evolutionary ecology in Germany and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the The Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research & Restoration in Key West, Florida.
Prior to coming to CSLA, Hanna obtained a B.S. in Marine Science (Biology & Honors track) from Eckerd College in 2008, where she studied the prevalence of pathogen-associated proteobacteria in Delaware’s bays. She studied the behavior of a venomous marine catfish Plotosus lineatus and its blenny mimic Pholidichthys leucotaenia during a research expedition to Papua New Guinea. She was a lab instructor at California State University, San Bernardino for the 2008-2009 academic year.