Matthew Troia
University of Texas at San Antonio, TX·Ecology & Evolution·Early-career
Why do species live where they do, and where will they go as the climate warms and cities spread? Freshwater fishes are a useful test case.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Earth & Environmental Science
Biology
- Topics
urban heat island
invasive species
tropical fishes
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Dec 2030
What they work on
- Measure acute cold and heat tolerance, acclimation potential, and energy budgets in three tropical and three related temperate freshwater fishes. Use these lab experiments to test whether tropical and temperate species differ in thermal physiology.
- Monitor winter stream temperatures in and around cities in south, central and north Texas. Measure how much urban heat islands warm streams above regional baseline temperatures.
- Build process-based species distribution models from the measured thermal limits and simulate tropical invasions under climate and urbanization scenarios. Validate the simulations with field population monitoring to produce invasion-risk maps.
- Test whether the elevation limits of Appalachian minnows and darters match the point where fish shift from energy surplus to deficit. Combine lab measurements of temperature effects on physiology, behavior and growth with a two-year field study.
- Develop next-generation species distribution models that link fish energy budgets with predator-prey interactions. Project shifts in elevation and latitude limits under future temperature, stream flow and prey scenarios.
More about the research
Rivers and lakes cover a tiny share of Earth's surface yet hold about a third of the world's fish species. Warming water is already letting some species expand their ranges while pushing others out. Two projects tackle this question. Both measure how temperature affects fish bodies in the laboratory. Both then feed those measurements into computer models that predict where species can survive.
Why it matters
Released aquarium fishes can harm native species and the freshwater resources people depend on. Forecast maps of where tropical invaders could spread around Texas cities could help managers watch for them and prevent new invasions. Projections of how Appalachian stream fishes will shift upslope or downslope as the climate changes are being developed with conservation practitioners. These tools could guide decisions on protecting vulnerable native species.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
CAREER: Do urban heat islands facilitate tropical species invasions? A test integrating course-based undergraduate research and a multi-institution researcher network
NSF · Jan 2026 – Dec 2030
Collaborative Research: ORCC: The role of bioenergetic budgets in defining elevation limits and modeling geographic ranges of species
NSF · Oct 2022 – Sep 2026
Closest labs
Chris Funk
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether cutthroat trout predators are more sensitive to rising water temperatures than their tailed frog tadpole prey, combining stream environment measurements, genomics and physiology experiments to measure heat adaptation.
Angela Smilanich
University of Nevada-Reno, NV·Ecology & Evolution
Rear caterpillars of five widespread butterfly species from populations across different biomes under temperatures mimicking past, current and future climates, measuring development rate and survival.
Troy Ocheltree
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Plant Science & Agriculture
Identify the networks of linked physiological traits that produce different drought-coping strategies in grasses, using a set of species that spans the entire grass family (Poaceae).
The school
University of Texas at San Antonio: 10 labs on PI Pages, $172M a year on research, 129 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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