scholarly journals Editorial: Future Oceans Under Multiple Stressors: From Global Change to Anthropogenic Impact

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Olsen ◽  
Isaac C. Kaplan ◽  
Cecilie Hansen ◽  
Elizabeth Fulton ◽  
Michael J. Fogarty ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Anthropogenic Impact ◽  
Multiple Stressors

scholarly journals Melanin-based coloration and host–parasite interactions under global change

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1879) ◽  
pp. 20180285 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Côte ◽  
A. Boniface ◽  
S. Blanchet ◽  
A. P. Hendry ◽  
J. Gasparini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Colour Polymorphism ◽  
Host Parasite Interactions ◽  
To Come ◽  
Colour Morphs ◽  
Host Parasite

The role of parasites in shaping melanin-based colour polymorphism, and the consequences of colour polymorphism for disease resistance, remain debated. Here we review recent evidence of the links between melanin-based coloration and the behavioural and immunological defences of vertebrates against their parasites. First we propose that (1) differences between colour morphs can result in variable exposure to parasites, either directly (certain colours might be more or less attractive to parasites) or indirectly (variations in behaviour and encounter probability). Once infected, we propose that (2) immune variation between differently coloured individuals might result in different abilities to cope with parasite infection. We then discuss (3) how these different abilities could translate into variable sexual and natural selection in environments varying in parasite pressure. Finally, we address (4) the potential role of parasites in the maintenance of melanin-based colour polymorphism, especially in the context of global change and multiple stressors in human-altered environments. Because global change will probably affect both coloration and the spread of parasitic diseases in the decades to come, future studies should take into account melanin-based coloration to better predict the evolutionary responses of animals to changing disease risk in human-altered environments.

scholarly journals Biodiversity response to natural gradients of multiple stressors on continental margins

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1829) ◽  
pp. 20160637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik A. Sperling ◽  
Christina A. Frieder ◽  
Lisa A. Levin
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Variance Partitioning ◽  
Continental Margins ◽  
Faunal Change ◽  
Ecological Shifts ◽  
Secondary Stressors ◽  
Sharp Thresholds

Sharp increases in atmospheric CO 2 are resulting in ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation that threaten marine organisms on continental margins and their ecological functions and resulting ecosystem services. The relative influence of these stressors on biodiversity remains unclear, as well as the threshold levels for change and when secondary stressors become important. One strategy to interpret adaptation potential and predict future faunal change is to examine ecological shifts along natural gradients in the modern ocean. Here, we assess the explanatory power of temperature, oxygen and the carbonate system for macrofaunal diversity and evenness along continental upwelling margins using variance partitioning techniques. Oxygen levels have the strongest explanatory capacity for variation in species diversity. Sharp drops in diversity are seen as O 2 levels decline through the 0.5–0.15 ml l −1 (approx. 22–6 µM; approx. 21–5 matm) range, and as temperature increases through the 7–10°C range. p CO 2 is the best explanatory variable in the Arabian Sea, but explains little of the variance in diversity in the eastern Pacific Ocean. By contrast, very little variation in evenness is explained by these three global change variables. The identification of sharp thresholds in ecological response are used here to predict areas of the seafloor where diversity is most at risk to future marine global change, noting that the existence of clear regional differences cautions against applying global thresholds.

scholarly journals A Limpet’s Legacy: Carry-Over Effects across Life Stages and Generations Caused by Global Change Stressors

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Gustav Kessel
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Marine Invertebrates ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Egg Mass ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Developmental Stress ◽  
Egg Masses ◽  
Context Dependent ◽  
Carry Over

<p>Global change is increasingly impacting coastal marine systems. Organisms inhabiting the intertidal zone may be especially vulnerable to additional anthropogenic influences, which augment the naturally stressful, highly variable conditions to which they are already subjected and may lead to the manifestation of artificially severe carry-over effects (COEs). In marine invertebrates with complex life histories, COEs can occur between life stages, when the conditions experienced by one stage influence the characteristics or performance of the next, as well as trans-generationally, in which case the environment experienced by a parental generation affects offspring. Most of the existing literature surrounding COEs focuses only on those between life stages or generations, seldom both simultaneously, and do so with the implementation of only a single stressor. In nature however, organisms may be affected by both forms of COE, since the presence of one does not preclude the other, and are invariably subjected to multiple co-occurring stressors that can interact in complex ways. Consequently, how trans-generational COEs might impact the propagation of stress through offspring life stages remains unclear, and how these processes operate in a global change context is little understood. It was here aimed to elucidate the role of COEs under ongoing global change by addressing these common literature imitations and taking the novel approach of examining how the effects of multiple, global change-associated stressors carry-over from a parental generation through their offspring’s life stages in order to provide a more realistic representation of the conditions under which COEs manifest in the field.  This was done using Siphonaria australis, an intertidal pulmonate limpet that deposits benthic egg masses, from which hatch planktonic veliger larvae. Adult S. australis were subjected to one of four treatments for 4h/day over four weeks to induce trans-generational COEs: a no-stress control, a pollution treatment with added copper (5.0μg/L), a “climate change” treatment with elevated temperature (25°C) and UVR (1.7W/m2), and a full global change treatment incorporating all three stressors. At the end of this period, the egg masses laid under each of these adult treatments were subjected to further experimentation for two weeks by being redistributed among the same four treatments again, so as to produce 16 unique treatment histories of adult-to-egg mass stress. Of these, 11 provided successfully hatching larvae, which were reared and observed for COEs between life stages (from egg to larva) under ambient conditions (ie. no added stressors) for 27 days.  In adult S. australis survivor size, the size of egg masses laid and the size of individual eggs varied in complex ways over time and across treatments, while the number of survivors was unaffected by stress. Egg masses were unaffected in terms of hatching time but displayed strong responses to parental and developmental stress exposure through hatching success, and the percentage of viable eggs per egg mass, with the latter clearly declining according to adult treatment severity and both showing trans-generational COEs. Larval characteristics were extremely varied across treatment histories and highly context-dependent as hatching size, size reached by 27 days, growth rate, and size at death all showed evidence of COEs between generations and life stages, as well as interaction between both types of COE, with the number of survivors again being the only unaffected response variable. Overall, trans-generational COEs were slightly more common than those between life stages.  These results show that both forms of COE, each triggered by exposure to multiple stressors in progenitors and developmental stages, interact to form highly context-dependent legacies of mostly impaired performance in S. australis larvae. This implies that COEs may become more prominent with worsening stressors in the future and suggests that the role of COEs in the persistence of marine invertebrates under ongoing global change may so far have been underestimated by the existing literature.</p>

scholarly journals Controlled experimental aquarium system for multi-stressor investigation: carbonate chemistry, oxygen saturation, and temperature

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 3431-3453 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. E. Bockmon ◽  
C. A. Frieder ◽  
M. O. Navarro ◽  
L. A. White-Kershek ◽  
A. G. Dickson
Keyword(s):  
Anthropogenic Impact ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Co2 Concentration ◽  
Marine Organisms ◽  
Controlled Environment ◽  
Carbonate Chemistry ◽  
Seawater Chemistry ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Better Than

Abstract. As the field of ocean acidification has grown, researchers have increasingly turned to laboratory experiments to understand the impacts of increased CO2 on marine organisms. However, other changes such as ocean warming and deoxygenation are occurring concurrently with the increasing CO2 concentrations, complicating the anthropogenic impact on organisms. This experimental aquarium design allows for independent regulation of CO2 concentration, O2 levels, and temperature in a controlled environment to study the impacts of multiple stressors. The system has the flexibility for a wide range of treatment chemistry, seawater volumes, and study organisms. Control of the seawater chemistry is achieved by equilibration of a chosen gas mixture with seawater using a Liqui-Cel® membrane contactor. Included as examples, two experiments performed using the system have shown control of CO2 between approximately 500–1400 μatm and O2 from 80–240 μmol kg−1. Temperature has been maintained to 0.5 °C or better in the range of 10–17 °C. On a weeklong timescale, control results in variability in pH of less than 0.007 pH units and in oxygen concentration less than 3.5 μmol kg−1. Longer experiments, over a month, have been completed with reasonable but lessened control, still better than 0.08 pH units and 13 μmol kg−1 O2. The ability to study the impacts of multiple stressors in the laboratory simultaneously, as well as independently, will be an important part of understanding the response of marine organisms to a high-CO2 world.

scholarly journals Stratified microbial communities are highly sensitive towards multiple combined global change factors, revealing antagonistic and synergistic effects

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel Suleiman ◽  
Yves Choffat ◽  
Xue Zheng ◽  
Owen Petchey
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Synergistic Effects ◽  
Species Abundance ◽  
Change Factors ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Different Temperatures ◽  
Global Change Scenarios ◽  
Shed Light

Microbial communities in many ecosystems are facing a broad range of global change scenarios, resulting in microbial changes and possibly regime shifts with unknown ecological consequences. While the influence of single stressors is already described in numerous studies, the effects of multiple stressors working simultaneously are still poorly understood. In this study, we used 240 highly replicable oxic/anoxic aquatic lab micro-ecosystems to understand the influence of four stressors (fertilizer, glyphosate, metal pollution, antibiotics) in all possible combinations at three different temperatures (20 °C, 24 °C, and 28 °C) to shed light into consequences of multiple stressors on different levels of organization, ranging from species abundance to community and ecosystem parameters. Our data reveal that (i) combination of specific stressors can change the biological consequence and direction compared to single stressors in all levels of organisation (ii), effects of stressor combinations are modified by temperature, and (iii) that the number of stressors applied also lead to significant changes. In sum, our study confirmed the need of investigating multiple stressors working simultaneously across different ecological levels of organisation.

scholarly journals Multiple global change stressor effects on phytoplankton nutrient acquisition in a future ocean

2020 ◽  
Vol 375 (1798) ◽  
pp. 20190706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dedmer B. Van de Waal ◽  
Elena Litchman
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Nutrient Acquisition ◽  
Marine Phytoplankton ◽  
Phytoplankton Production ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Light Levels ◽  
Small Phytoplankton ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Microbial Groups

Predicting the effects of multiple global change stressors on microbial communities remains a challenge because of the complex interactions among those factors. Here, we explore the combined effects of major global change stressors on nutrient acquisition traits in marine phytoplankton. Nutrient limitation constrains phytoplankton production in large parts of the present-day oceans, and is expected to increase owing to climate change, potentially favouring small phytoplankton that are better adapted to oligotrophic conditions. However, other stressors, such as elevated p CO 2 , rising temperatures and higher light levels, may reduce general metabolic and photosynthetic costs, allowing the reallocation of energy to the acquisition of increasingly limiting nutrients. We propose that this energy reallocation in response to major global change stressors may be more effective in large-celled phytoplankton species and, thus, could indirectly benefit large-more than small-celled phytoplankton, offsetting, at least partially, competitive disadvantages of large cells in a future ocean. Thus, considering the size-dependent responses to multiple stressors may provide a more nuanced understanding of how different microbial groups would fare in the future climate and what effects that would have on ecosystem functioning. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Conceptual challenges in microbial community ecology’.

scholarly journals A Limpet’s Legacy: Carry-Over Effects across Life Stages and Generations Caused by Global Change Stressors

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Gustav Kessel
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Marine Invertebrates ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Egg Mass ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Developmental Stress ◽  
Egg Masses ◽  
Context Dependent ◽  
Carry Over

<p>Global change is increasingly impacting coastal marine systems. Organisms inhabiting the intertidal zone may be especially vulnerable to additional anthropogenic influences, which augment the naturally stressful, highly variable conditions to which they are already subjected and may lead to the manifestation of artificially severe carry-over effects (COEs). In marine invertebrates with complex life histories, COEs can occur between life stages, when the conditions experienced by one stage influence the characteristics or performance of the next, as well as trans-generationally, in which case the environment experienced by a parental generation affects offspring. Most of the existing literature surrounding COEs focuses only on those between life stages or generations, seldom both simultaneously, and do so with the implementation of only a single stressor. In nature however, organisms may be affected by both forms of COE, since the presence of one does not preclude the other, and are invariably subjected to multiple co-occurring stressors that can interact in complex ways. Consequently, how trans-generational COEs might impact the propagation of stress through offspring life stages remains unclear, and how these processes operate in a global change context is little understood. It was here aimed to elucidate the role of COEs under ongoing global change by addressing these common literature imitations and taking the novel approach of examining how the effects of multiple, global change-associated stressors carry-over from a parental generation through their offspring’s life stages in order to provide a more realistic representation of the conditions under which COEs manifest in the field.  This was done using Siphonaria australis, an intertidal pulmonate limpet that deposits benthic egg masses, from which hatch planktonic veliger larvae. Adult S. australis were subjected to one of four treatments for 4h/day over four weeks to induce trans-generational COEs: a no-stress control, a pollution treatment with added copper (5.0μg/L), a “climate change” treatment with elevated temperature (25°C) and UVR (1.7W/m2), and a full global change treatment incorporating all three stressors. At the end of this period, the egg masses laid under each of these adult treatments were subjected to further experimentation for two weeks by being redistributed among the same four treatments again, so as to produce 16 unique treatment histories of adult-to-egg mass stress. Of these, 11 provided successfully hatching larvae, which were reared and observed for COEs between life stages (from egg to larva) under ambient conditions (ie. no added stressors) for 27 days.  In adult S. australis survivor size, the size of egg masses laid and the size of individual eggs varied in complex ways over time and across treatments, while the number of survivors was unaffected by stress. Egg masses were unaffected in terms of hatching time but displayed strong responses to parental and developmental stress exposure through hatching success, and the percentage of viable eggs per egg mass, with the latter clearly declining according to adult treatment severity and both showing trans-generational COEs. Larval characteristics were extremely varied across treatment histories and highly context-dependent as hatching size, size reached by 27 days, growth rate, and size at death all showed evidence of COEs between generations and life stages, as well as interaction between both types of COE, with the number of survivors again being the only unaffected response variable. Overall, trans-generational COEs were slightly more common than those between life stages.  These results show that both forms of COE, each triggered by exposure to multiple stressors in progenitors and developmental stages, interact to form highly context-dependent legacies of mostly impaired performance in S. australis larvae. This implies that COEs may become more prominent with worsening stressors in the future and suggests that the role of COEs in the persistence of marine invertebrates under ongoing global change may so far have been underestimated by the existing literature.</p>

scholarly journals The rate of environmental change as an important driver across scales in ecology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Synodinos ◽  
Rajat Karnatak ◽  
Carlos A. Aguilar-Trigueros ◽  
Pierre Gras ◽  
Tina Heger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Alternative States ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Theoretical Synthesis ◽  
Fast Change ◽  
Smooth Change ◽  
Environmental Driver

Global change has been predominantly studied from the prism of ‘how much’ rather than ‘how fast’ change occurs. The paradigm underlying the former assumes that a smooth change in an environmental driver can force a regime shift between alternative states (Bifurcation-tipping). This presupposes that environmental conditions change at a rate which allows the ecological entity to track them and thus reach equilibrium. However, current rates of environmental change are often too fast for this paradigm to apply, necessitating a shift in approach to improve predictions on the impacts of rapid environmental change. The theory of rate-induced tipping (Rate-tipping) demonstrates how rates of environmental change can cause tipping phenomena even in the absence of alternative states. We illustrate how Rate-tipping can apply to a range of ecological scenarios and explore the literature for properties which increase the sensitivity to rates of change. Further, we discuss how targeted empirical studies can investigate the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms through which rate-induced phenomena can propagate across levels of organisation. Finally, we argue for the inclusion of Rate-tipping in the study of global change as the first step towards the theoretical synthesis necessary to account for multiple stressors impacting ecological entities simultaneously.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document