I’m a visiting marine biology master’s student from Sweden conducting my thesis at the Wernberg and Filbee-Dexter labs. My research aims to quantify the thermal tolerance of the brown algae Cystophora brownii, a remnant warm-edge population existing along the Western Australian coast. Historical records have shown that the Cystophora genus has undergone functional extinction across approximately 100-300 km of its historical range edge. While limited research has been conducted on the cause, increasing summer temperatures are a suggested explanation. As ocean temperatures continues to rise, understanding the resilience and threshold temperature is important to predict its future distribution and to guide future conservation and management strategies. To address this, I will conduct thermal temperature experiments on both zygotes and fragments of C.brownii, measuring survivorship, growth and photosynthetic performance.