Rapid emergence of climate change in environmental drivers of marine ecosystems

The first Mares Conference on Marine Ecosystems Health and Conservation was a successful event organized by the MARES doctoral programme bringing together over 150 researchers in Olhão, Portugal from November 17th to 21st 2014. The conference was opened by Prof. Dr. Hans-Otto Pörtner, whose keynote address focused on a sectoral analysis by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC AR5) on the impacts of climate change on the world’s oceans. The first session on “Future oceans” was opened with a talk by Dr. Frank Melzner highlighting the problems calcifying invertebrates face in the warmer, more acidic and hypoxic waters. Other presenters dealt with changing global diversity patterns, ocean acidification, and the loss the genetic diversity. The second session on “Natural resources” was opened by Dr. Rainer Froese, who focused on whether or not the oceans can feed humanity. This talk introduced other contributions in the session, dealing with fisheries issues and Marine Protected Areas, as well as problems with proper identifications of species used for economic purposes. “Biodiversity effects” was the scope of the third session opened by a talk on oxygenation and marine biodiversity challenges in the 21st Century by Prof. Lisa Levin. Rapid ocean deoxygenation is a process which is currently less investigated but which has considerable effects on body size, taxonomic composition, habitat heterogeneity, and nutrient cycling. The following presentations focused on other factors having a strong effect on marine biodiversity, ranging from the harvesting of algae to the fragmentation of ecosystems. The fourth session addressed “Biological invasions”. Dr. Gregory Ruiz discussed biological invasions in North American marine ecosystems and the need for constant monitoring, and the use of a dynamic and multi-vector approach. Problems with invasive species in European waters were addressed with examples from the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. The fifth session on “Ocean Noise” was opened by Prof. Peter Tyack with a talk on the effects of anthropogenic sound on marine mammals. Although ocean noise issues are often linked to marine mammals, the effects of sound related to marine constructions on fish behaviour, nicely illustrated that ocean noise is a factor with a much broader impact than expected. The last session of the first Mares Conference dealt with “Habitat loss”. Dr. Michael Beck focused on this topic with his talk on ‘Building Coastal Resilience for Climate Adaptation and Risk Reduction’. Talks in the session ranged from the use of telemetry as a tool to monitor species in changed habitats, to cases dealing with sea level rise related problems in for example salt-marshes. The first Mares Conference offered a broad range of oral and poster presentations, as well as digital presentations. The poster and digital object presentations included over 100 contributions.

Similarities, differences and mechanisms of climate impact on terrestrial vs. marine ecosystems

Nature Conservation ◽

10.3897/natureconservation.34.30923 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 34 ◽

pp. 505-523 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Maurizio Ribera d’Alcalà

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Scientific Literature ◽

Marine Ecosystems ◽

Climate Impact ◽

Step Change ◽

The Other ◽

Main Stream ◽

Transfer Of Knowledge ◽

Fluid Media ◽

Two Fluid

Comparisons between terrestrial and marine ecosystems are generally not in the main stream of scientific literature even though Webb (2012) listed several points for which the transfer of knowledge and concepts related to one or to the other system would benefit our understanding of both. Even sharing this view, the leading hypothesis behind this contribution is that the pelagic system, where the dominant biotic component by number and biomass is microscopic, has specific features which strongly differentiate it from the above-the-surface terrestrial systems. Due to this, climate change, i.e. changes in temperature, precipitation and most importantly in the dynamics of the two fluid media, atmosphere and ocean, act with different mechanisms which prevents proceeding with analogies in many cases. In addition, the non-linearity of most of the processes and responses to perturbations requires, in order to obtain reliable forecasts or hindcasts, a detailed analysis of the path followed by the system which is normally overlooked in the step-change simulations or projections.

Chapter 1. Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems and resources

The Mediterranean region under climate change ◽

10.4000/books.irdeditions.23397 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 207-210

Author(s):

Yunne-Jai Shin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Marine Ecosystems

Latitudinal patterns in intertidal ecosystem structure in West Greenland suggest resilience to climate change

10.1101/2021.01.05.419028 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jakob Thyrring ◽

Susse Wegeberg ◽

Martin E Blicher ◽

Dorte Krause-Jensen ◽

Signe H&oslashgslund ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ascophyllum Nodosum ◽

Tidal Range ◽

Environmental Drivers ◽

Small Scale ◽

Ecosystem Structure ◽

Assemblage Composition ◽

West Greenland ◽

Functional Changes ◽

Time Substitution

Climate change has ecosystem-wide cascading effects. Little is known, however, about the resilience of Arctic marine ecosystems to environmental change. Here we quantify and compare large-scale patterns in rocky intertidal biomass, coverage and zonation in six regions along a north-south gradient of temperature and ice conditions in West Greenland (60-72°N). We related the level and variation in assemblage composition, biomass and coverage to latitudinal-scale environmental drivers. Across all latitudes, the intertidal assemblage was dominated by a core of stress-tolerant foundation species that constituted >95% of the biomass. Hence, canopy-forming macroalgae, represented by Fucus distichus subsp. evanescens and F. vesiculosus and, up to 69 °N, also Ascophyllum nodosum, together with Semibalanus balanoides, occupied >70% of the vertical tidal range in all regions. Thus, a similar functional assemblage composition occurred across regions, and no latitudinal depression was observed. The most conspicuous difference in species composition from south to north was that three common species (the macroalgae Ascophyllum nodosum, the amphipod Gammarus setosus and the gastropod Littorina obtusata) disappeared from the mid-intertidal, although at different latitudes. There were no significant relationships between assemblage metrics and air temperature or sea ice coverage as obtained from weather stations and satellites, respectively. Although the mean biomass decreased >50% from south to north, local biomass in excess of 10 000 g ww m-2 was found even at the northernmost site, demonstrating the patchiness of this habitat and the effect of small-scale variation in environmental characteristics. Hence, using the latitudinal gradient in a space-for-time substitution, our results suggest that while climate modification may lead to an overall increase in the intertidal biomass in north Greenland, it is unlikely to drive dramatic functional changes in ecosystem structure in the near future. Our dataset provides an important baseline for future studies to verify these predictions for Greenlands intertidal zone.

Responses of Marine Ecosystems to Climate Change: Where Do We Go from Here?

Responses of Arctic Marine Ecosystems to Climate Change ◽

10.4027/ramecc.2013.08 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

F. Ulmer

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Marine Ecosystems

Contrasting effects of climate change on seasonal survival of a hibernating mammal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1918584117 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 117 (30) ◽

pp. 18119-18126 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Line S. Cordes ◽

Daniel T. Blumstein ◽

Kenneth B. Armitage ◽

Paul J. CaraDonna ◽

Dylan Z. Childs ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Population Dynamics ◽

Life History ◽

Environmental Conditions ◽

Temporal Trends ◽

Life History Strategies ◽

Environmental Drivers ◽

Age Classes ◽

History Of ◽

Colorado Rocky Mountains

Seasonal environmental conditions shape the behavior and life history of virtually all organisms. Climate change is modifying these seasonal environmental conditions, which threatens to disrupt population dynamics. It is conceivable that climatic changes may be beneficial in one season but result in detrimental conditions in another because life-history strategies vary between these time periods. We analyzed the temporal trends in seasonal survival of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) and explored the environmental drivers using a 40-y dataset from the Colorado Rocky Mountains (USA). Trends in survival revealed divergent seasonal patterns, which were similar across age-classes. Marmot survival declined during winter but generally increased during summer. Interestingly, different environmental factors appeared to drive survival trends across age-classes. Winter survival was largely driven by conditions during the preceding summer and the effect of continued climate change was likely to be mainly negative, whereas the likely outcome of continued climate change on summer survival was generally positive. This study illustrates that seasonal demographic responses need disentangling to accurately forecast the impacts of climate change on animal population dynamics.