Title: The biology of apex marine predators in changing environmentsSpeaker: Dr. Sarah Kienle, Assistant Professor, URI Natural Resources ScienceShort description: Apex marine predators (seals, whales, dolphins, and...wolves?!) are critical for maintaining ecosystem structure and function throughout our world's oceans. As such, changes in the abundance and distribution of marine predators can cause trophic cascades that ripple throughout the food web and/or signal environmental shifts. In this talk, I will share three current projects in our Comparative Ecophysiology of Animals Lab (CEAL Lab) centered on marine mammals (and potential marine mammals) and their ecological and physiological adaptations for surviving (and thriving) in marine ecosystems. One project is focused on leopard seals, a poorly studied apex predator living in the rapidly changing Southern Ocean. The second project centers on the aquatic resource use by a traditionally terrestrial predator - gray wolves. The third project dives into a mysterious morphological structure inside whales and dolphins that may play a key role in their unique diving physiology. Together, work from the CEAL lab is providing new insights into the ecology and physiology of enigmatic marine apex predators.