Evidence for climate-driven synchrony of marine and terrestrial ecosystems in northwest Australia.

PubMed

Ong, Joyce J L; Rountrey, Adam N; Zinke, Jens; Meeuwig, Jessica J; Grierson, Pauline F; O'Donnell, Alison J; Newman, Stephen J; Lough, Janice M; Trougan, Mélissa; Meekan, Mark G

2016-08-01

The effects of climate change are difficult to predict for many marine species because little is known of their response to climate variations in the past. However, long-term chronologies of growth, a variable that integrates multiple physical and biological factors, are now available for several marine taxa. These allow us to search for climate-driven synchrony in growth across multiple taxa and ecosystems, identifying the key processes driving biological responses at very large spatial scales. We hypothesized that in northwest (NW) Australia, a region that is predicted to be strongly influenced by climate change, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon would be an important factor influencing the growth patterns of organisms in both marine and terrestrial environments. To test this idea, we analyzed existing growth chronologies of the marine fish Lutjanus argentimaculatus, the coral Porites spp. and the tree Callitris columellaris and developed a new chronology for another marine fish, Lethrinus nebulosus. Principal components analysis and linear model selection showed evidence of ENSO-driven synchrony in growth among all four taxa at interannual time scales, the first such result for the Southern Hemisphere. Rainfall, sea surface temperatures, and sea surface salinities, which are linked to the ENSO system, influenced the annual growth of fishes, trees, and corals. All four taxa had negative relationships with the Niño-4 index (a measure of ENSO status), with positive growth patterns occurring during strong La Niña years. This finding implies that future changes in the strength and frequency of ENSO events are likely to have major consequences for both marine and terrestrial taxa. Strong similarities in the growth patterns of fish and trees offer the possibility of using tree-ring chronologies, which span longer time periods than those of fish, to aid understanding of both historical and future responses of fish populations to climate variation. �

Climate change alters stability and species potential interactions in a large marine ecosystem.

PubMed

Griffith, Gary P; Strutton, Peter G; Semmens, Jayson M

2018-01-01

We have little empirical evidence of how large-scale overlaps between large numbers of marine species may have altered in response to human impacts. Here, we synthesized all available distribution data (>1 million records) since 1992 for 61 species of the East Australian marine ecosystem, a global hot spot of ocean warming and continuing fisheries exploitation. Using a novel approach, we constructed networks of the annual changes in geographical overlaps between species. Using indices of changes in species overlap, we quantified changes in the ecosystem stability, species robustness, species sensitivity and structural keystone species. We then compared the species overlap indices with environmental and fisheries data to identify potential factors leading to the changes in distributional overlaps between species. We found that the structure of the ecosystem has changed with a decrease in asymmetrical geographical overlaps between species. This suggests that the ecosystem has become less stable and potentially more susceptible to environmental perturbations. Most species have shown a decrease in overlaps with other species. The greatest decrease in species overlap robustness and sensitivity to the loss of other species has occurred in the pelagic community. Some demersal species have become more robust and less sensitive. Pelagic structural keystone species, predominately the tunas and billfish, have been replaced by demersal fish species. The changes in species overlap were strongly correlated with regional oceanographic changes, in particular increasing ocean warming and the southward transport of warmer and saltier water with the East Australian Current, but less correlated with fisheries catch. Our study illustrates how large-scale multispecies distribution changes can help identify structural changes in marine ecosystems associated with climate change. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Climate change. Six centuries of variability and extremes in a coupled marine-terrestrial ecosystem.

PubMed

Black, Bryan A; Sydeman, William J; Frank, David C; Griffin, Daniel; Stahle, David W; García-Reyes, Marisol; Rykaczewski, Ryan R; Bograd, Steven J; Peterson, William T

2014-09-19

Reported trends in the mean and variability of coastal upwelling in eastern boundary currents have raised concerns about the future of these highly productive and biodiverse marine ecosystems. However, the instrumental records on which these estimates are based are insufficiently long to determine whether such trends exceed preindustrial limits. In the California Current, a 576-year reconstruction of climate variables associated with winter upwelling indicates that variability increased over the latter 20th century to levels equaled only twice during the past 600 years. This modern trend in variance may be unique, because it appears to be driven by an unprecedented succession of extreme, downwelling-favorable, winter climate conditions that profoundly reduce productivity for marine predators of commercial and conservation interest. Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Marine pelagic ecosystems: the West Antarctic Peninsula

PubMed Central

Ducklow, Hugh W; Baker, Karen; Martinson, Douglas G; Quetin, Langdon B; Ross, Robin M; Smith, Raymond C; Stammerjohn, Sharon E; Vernet, Maria; Fraser, William

2006-01-01

The marine ecosystem of the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) extends from the Bellingshausen Sea to the northern tip of the peninsula and from the mostly glaciated coast across the continental shelf to the shelf break in the west. The glacially sculpted coastline along the peninsula is highly convoluted and characterized by deep embayments that are often interconnected by channels that facilitate transport of heat and nutrients into the shelf domain. The ecosystem is divided into three subregions, the continental slope, shelf and coastal regions, each with unique ocean dynamics, water mass and biological distributions. The WAP shelf lies within the Antarctic Sea Ice Zone (SIZ) and like other SIZs, the WAP system is very productive, supporting large stocks of marine mammals, birds and the Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba. Ecosystem dynamics is dominated by the seasonal and interannual variation in sea ice extent and retreat. The Antarctic Peninsula is one among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth, having experienced a 2°C increase in the annual mean temperature and a 6°C rise in the mean winter temperature since 1950. Delivery of heat from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current has increased significantly in the past decade, sufficient to drive to a 0.6°C warming of the upper 300 m of shelf water. In the past 50 years and continuing in the twenty-first century, the warm, moist maritime climate of the northern WAP has been migrating south, displacing the once dominant cold, dry continental Antarctic climate and causing multi-level responses in the marine ecosystem. Ecosystem responses to the regional warming include increased heat transport, decreased sea ice extent and duration, local declines in ice-dependent Adélie penguins, increase in ice-tolerant gentoo and chinstrap penguins, alterations in phytoplankton and zooplankton community composition and changes in krill recruitment, abundance and availability to predators. The climate/ecological gradients

Anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems in Antarctica.

PubMed

Aronson, Richard B; Thatje, Sven; McClintock, James B; Hughes, Kevin A

2011-03-01

Antarctica is the most isolated continent on Earth, but it has not escaped the negative impacts of human activity. The unique marine ecosystems of Antarctica and their endemic faunas are affected on local and regional scales by overharvesting, pollution, and the introduction of alien species. Global climate change is also having deleterious impacts: rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification already threaten benthic and pelagic food webs. The Antarctic Treaty System can address local- to regional-scale impacts, but it does not have purview over the global problems that impinge on Antarctica, such as emissions of greenhouse gases. Failure to address human impacts simultaneously at all scales will lead to the degradation of Antarctic marine ecosystems and the homogenization of their composition, structure, and processes with marine ecosystems elsewhere. © 2011 New York Academy of Sciences.

Climate warming, marine protected areas and the ocean-scale integrity of coral reef ecosystems.

PubMed

Graham, Nicholas A J; McClanahan, Tim R; MacNeil, M Aaron; Wilson, Shaun K; Polunin, Nicholas V C; Jennings, Simon; Chabanet, Pascale; Clark, Susan; Spalding, Mark D; Letourneur, Yves; Bigot, Lionel; Galzin, René; Ohman, Marcus C; Garpe, Kajsa C; Edwards, Alasdair J; Sheppard, Charles R C

2008-08-27

Coral reefs have emerged as one of the ecosystems most vulnerable to climate variation and change. While the contribution of a warming climate to the loss of live coral cover has been well documented across large spatial and temporal scales, the associated effects on fish have not. Here, we respond to recent and repeated calls to assess the importance of local management in conserving coral reefs in the context of global climate change. Such information is important, as coral reef fish assemblages are the most species dense vertebrate communities on earth, contributing critical ecosystem functions and providing crucial ecosystem services to human societies in tropical countries. Our assessment of the impacts of the 1998 mass bleaching event on coral cover, reef structural complexity, and reef associated fishes spans 7 countries, 66 sites and 26 degrees of latitude in the Indian Ocean. Using Bayesian meta-analysis we show that changes in the size structure, diversity and trophic composition of the reef fish community have followed coral declines. Although the ocean scale integrity of these coral reef ecosystems has been lost, it is positive to see the effects are spatially variable at multiple scales, with impacts and vulnerability affected by geography but not management regime. Existing no-take marine protected areas still support high biomass of fish, however they had no positive affect on the ecosystem response to large-scale disturbance. This suggests a need for future conservation and management efforts to identify and protect regional refugia, which should be integrated into existing management frameworks and combined with policies to improve system-wide resilience to climate variation and change.

Tipping elements in the Arctic marine ecosystem.

PubMed

Duarte, Carlos M; Agustí, Susana; Wassmann, Paul; Arrieta, Jesús M; Alcaraz, Miquel; Coello, Alexandra; Marbà, Núria; Hendriks, Iris E; Holding, Johnna; García-Zarandona, Iñigo; Kritzberg, Emma; Vaqué, Dolors

2012-02-01

The Arctic marine ecosystem contains multiple elements that present alternative states. The most obvious of which is an Arctic Ocean largely covered by an ice sheet in summer versus one largely devoid of such cover. Ecosystems under pressure typically shift between such alternative states in an abrupt, rather than smooth manner, with the level of forcing required for shifting this status termed threshold or tipping point. Loss of Arctic ice due to anthropogenic climate change is accelerating, with the extent of Arctic sea ice displaying increased variance at present, a leading indicator of the proximity of a possible tipping point. Reduced ice extent is expected, in turn, to trigger a number of additional tipping elements, physical, chemical, and biological, in motion, with potentially large impacts on the Arctic marine ecosystem.

Climate change impacts on U.S. coastal and marine ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Scavia, Donald; Field, John C.; Boesch, Donald F.; Buddemeier, Robert W.; Burkett, Virginia; Cayan, Daniel R.; Fogarty, Michael; Harwell, Mark A.; Howarth, Robert W.; Mason, Curt; Reed, Denise J.; Royer, Thomas C.; Sallenger, Asbury H.; Titus, James G.

2002-01-01

Increases in concentrations of greenhouse gases projected for the 21st century are expected to lead to increased mean global air and ocean temperatures. The National Assessment of Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (NAST 2001) was based on a series of regional and sector assessments. This paper is a summary of the coastal and marine resources sector review of potential impacts on shorelines, estuaries, coastal wetlands, coral reefs, and ocean margin ecosystems. The assessment considered the impacts of several key drivers of climate change: sea level change; alterations in precipitation patterns and subsequent delivery of freshwater, nutrients, and sediment; increased ocean temperature; alterations in circulation patterns; changes in frequency and intensity of coastal storms; and increased levels of atmospheric CO2. Increasing rates of sea-level rise and intensity and frequency of coastal storms and hurricanes over the next decades will increase threats to shorelines, wetlands, and coastal development. Estuarine productivity will change in response to alteration in the timing and amount of freshwater, nutrients, and sediment delivery. Higher water temperatures and changes in freshwater delivery will alter estuarine stratification, residence time, and eutrophication. Increased ocean temperatures are expected to increase coral bleaching and higher CO2 levels may reduce coral calcification, making it more difficult for corals to recover from other disturbances, and inhibiting poleward shifts. Ocean warming is expected to cause poleward shifts in the ranges of many other organisms, including commercial species, and these shifts may have secondary effects on their predators and prey. Although these potential impacts of climate change and variability will vary from system to system, it is important to recognize that they will be superimposed upon, and in many cases intensify, other ecosystem stresses (pollution, harvesting, habitat destruction

When 1+1 can be >2: Uncertainties compound when simulating climate, fisheries and marine ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evans, Karen; Brown, Jaclyn N.; Sen Gupta, Alex; Nicol, Simon J.; Hoyle, Simon; Matear, Richard; Arrizabalaga, Haritz

2015-03-01

Multi-disciplinary approaches that combine oceanographic, biogeochemical, ecosystem, fisheries population and socio-economic models are vital tools for modelling whole ecosystems. Interpreting the outputs from such complex models requires an appreciation of the many different types of modelling frameworks being used and their associated limitations and uncertainties. Both users and developers of particular model components will often have little involvement or understanding of other components within such modelling frameworks. Failure to recognise limitations and uncertainties associated with components and how these uncertainties might propagate throughout modelling frameworks can potentially result in poor advice for resource management. Unfortunately, many of the current integrative frameworks do not propagate the uncertainties of their constituent parts. In this review, we outline the major components of a generic whole of ecosystem modelling framework incorporating the external pressures of climate and fishing. We discuss the limitations and uncertainties associated with each component of such a modelling system, along with key research gaps. Major uncertainties in modelling frameworks are broadly categorised into those associated with (i) deficient knowledge in the interactions of climate and ocean dynamics with marine organisms and ecosystems; (ii) lack of observations to assess and advance modelling efforts and (iii) an inability to predict with confidence natural ecosystem variability and longer term changes as a result of external drivers (e.g. greenhouse gases, fishing effort) and the consequences for marine ecosystems. As a result of these uncertainties and intrinsic differences in the structure and parameterisation of models, users are faced with considerable challenges associated with making appropriate choices on which models to use. We suggest research directions required to address these uncertainties, and caution against overconfident predictions

Climate change and the marine ecosystem of the western Antarctic Peninsula

PubMed Central

Clarke, Andrew; Murphy, Eugene J; Meredith, Michael P; King, John C; Peck, Lloyd S; Barnes, David K.A; Smith, Raymond C

2006-01-01

The Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing one of the fastest rates of regional climate change on Earth, resulting in the collapse of ice shelves, the retreat of glaciers and the exposure of new terrestrial habitat. In the nearby oceanic system, winter sea ice in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas has decreased in extent by 10% per decade, and shortened in seasonal duration. Surface waters have warmed by more than 1 K since the 1950s, and the Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current has also warmed. Of the changes observed in the marine ecosystem of the western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region to date, alterations in winter sea ice dynamics are the most likely to have had a direct impact on the marine fauna, principally through shifts in the extent and timing of habitat for ice-associated biota. Warming of seawater at depths below ca 100 m has yet to reach the levels that are biologically significant. Continued warming, or a change in the frequency of the flooding of CDW onto the WAP continental shelf may, however, induce sublethal effects that influence ecological interactions and hence food-web operation. The best evidence for recent changes in the ecosystem may come from organisms which record aspects of their population dynamics in their skeleton (such as molluscs or brachiopods) or where ecological interactions are preserved (such as in encrusting biota of hard substrata). In addition, a southwards shift of marine isotherms may induce a parallel migration of some taxa similar to that observed on land. The complexity of the Southern Ocean food web and the nonlinear nature of many interactions mean that predictions based on short-term studies of a small number of species are likely to be misleading. PMID:17405211

Climate change and the marine ecosystem of the western Antarctic Peninsula.

PubMed

Clarke, Andrew; Murphy, Eugene J; Meredith, Michael P; King, John C; Peck, Lloyd S; Barnes, David K A; Smith, Raymond C

2007-01-29

The Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing one of the fastest rates of regional climate change on Earth, resulting in the collapse of ice shelves, the retreat of glaciers and the exposure of new terrestrial habitat. In the nearby oceanic system, winter sea ice in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas has decreased in extent by 10% per decade, and shortened in seasonal duration. Surface waters have warmed by more than 1 K since the 1950s, and the Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current has also warmed. Of the changes observed in the marine ecosystem of the western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region to date, alterations in winter sea ice dynamics are the most likely to have had a direct impact on the marine fauna, principally through shifts in the extent and timing of habitat for ice-associated biota. Warming of seawater at depths below ca 100 m has yet to reach the levels that are biologically significant. Continued warming, or a change in the frequency of the flooding of CDW onto the WAP continental shelf may, however, induce sublethal effects that influence ecological interactions and hence food-web operation. The best evidence for recent changes in the ecosystem may come from organisms which record aspects of their population dynamics in their skeleton (such as molluscs or brachiopods) or where ecological interactions are preserved (such as in encrusting biota of hard substrata). In addition, a southwards shift of marine isotherms may induce a parallel migration of some taxa similar to that observed on land. The complexity of the Southern Ocean food web and the nonlinear nature of many interactions mean that predictions based on short-term studies of a small number of species are likely to be misleading.

Characterising meso-marine ecosystems of the North Pacific

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Batten, Sonia D.; David Hyrenbach, K.; Sydeman, William J.; Morgan, Ken H.; Henry, Michael F.; Yen, Peggy P. Y.; Welch, David W.

2006-02-01

To delineate mesoscale variability in marine ecosystems of the subarctic North Pacific and identify "hotspots" of biological activity, we conducted contemporaneous surveys of plankton and avifaunal communites in 2000-2003. Plankton samples were collected with a continuous plankton recorder (CPR) towed by a commercial vessel while a trained observer recorded marine bird distributions using strip-transect techniques. Near- and sub-surface physical oceanographic properties and productivity patterns were measured using a temperature data logger and satellite-derived chlorophyll a concentrations. We identified 10 distinct biological communities across the North Pacific, which we refer to as 'meso-marine ecosystems' (MME). We examined the characteristics of MME over multiple years to assess temporal persistence. MME were associated with different bathymetric domains and current systems. MME differed in the overall abundance and species composition of their fauna and, therefore, almost certainly in productivity. Regular monitoring of the spatial and temporal variability of MME will enhance our ability to detect and understand coupled climate-ecosystem responses, and, in turn, help guide ecosystem-based fisheries and wildlife management.

Response of seafloor ecosystems to abrupt global climate change

PubMed Central

Moffitt, Sarah E.; Hill, Tessa M.; Roopnarine, Peter D.; Kennett, James P.

2015-01-01

Anthropogenic climate change is predicted to decrease oceanic oxygen (O2) concentrations, with potentially significant effects on marine ecosystems. Geologically recent episodes of abrupt climatic warming provide opportunities to assess the effects of changing oxygenation on marine communities. Thus far, this knowledge has been largely restricted to investigations using Foraminifera, with little being known about ecosystem-scale responses to abrupt, climate-forced deoxygenation. We here present high-resolution records based on the first comprehensive quantitative analysis, to our knowledge, of changes in marine metazoans (Mollusca, Echinodermata, Arthropoda, and Annelida; >5,400 fossils and trace fossils) in response to the global warming associated with the last glacial to interglacial episode. The molluscan archive is dominated by extremophile taxa, including those containing endosymbiotic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (Lucinoma aequizonatum) and those that graze on filamentous sulfur-oxidizing benthic bacterial mats (Alia permodesta). This record, from 16,100 to 3,400 y ago, demonstrates that seafloor invertebrate communities are subject to major turnover in response to relatively minor inferred changes in oxygenation (>1.5 to <0.5 mL⋅L−1 [O2]) associated with abrupt (<100 y) warming of the eastern Pacific. The biotic turnover and recovery events within the record expand known rates of marine biological recovery by an order of magnitude, from <100 to >1,000 y, and illustrate the crucial role of climate and oceanographic change in driving long-term successional changes in ocean ecosystems. PMID:25825727

Response of seafloor ecosystems to abrupt global climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moffitt, Sarah E.; Hill, Tessa M.; Roopnarine, Peter D.; Kennett, James P.

2015-04-01

Anthropogenic climate change is predicted to decrease oceanic oxygen (O2) concentrations, with potentially significant effects on marine ecosystems. Geologically recent episodes of abrupt climatic warming provide opportunities to assess the effects of changing oxygenation on marine communities. Thus far, this knowledge has been largely restricted to investigations using Foraminifera, with little being known about ecosystem-scale responses to abrupt, climate-forced deoxygenation. We here present high-resolution records based on the first comprehensive quantitative analysis, to our knowledge, of changes in marine metazoans (Mollusca, Echinodermata, Arthropoda, and Annelida; >5,400 fossils and trace fossils) in response to the global warming associated with the last glacial to interglacial episode. The molluscan archive is dominated by extremophile taxa, including those containing endosymbiotic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (Lucinoma aequizonatum) and those that graze on filamentous sulfur-oxidizing benthic bacterial mats (Alia permodesta). This record, from 16,100 to 3,400 y ago, demonstrates that seafloor invertebrate communities are subject to major turnover in response to relatively minor inferred changes in oxygenation (>1.5 to <0.5 mLṡL-1 [O2]) associated with abrupt (<100 y) warming of the eastern Pacific. The biotic turnover and recovery events within the record expand known rates of marine biological recovery by an order of magnitude, from <100 to >1,000 y, and illustrate the crucial role of climate and oceanographic change in driving long-term successional changes in ocean ecosystems.

Slowing down of North Pacific climate variability and its implications for abrupt ecosystem change.

PubMed

Boulton, Chris A; Lenton, Timothy M

2015-09-15

Marine ecosystems are sensitive to stochastic environmental variability, with higher-amplitude, lower-frequency--i.e., "redder"--variability posing a greater threat of triggering large ecosystem changes. Here we show that fluctuations in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index have slowed down markedly over the observational record (1900-present), as indicated by a robust increase in autocorrelation. This "reddening" of the spectrum of climate variability is also found in regionally averaged North Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs), and can be at least partly explained by observed deepening of the ocean mixed layer. The progressive reddening of North Pacific climate variability has important implications for marine ecosystems. Ecosystem variables that respond linearly to climate forcing will have become prone to much larger variations over the observational record, whereas ecosystem variables that respond nonlinearly to climate forcing will have become prone to more frequent "regime shifts." Thus, slowing down of North Pacific climate variability can help explain the large magnitude and potentially the quick succession of well-known abrupt changes in North Pacific ecosystems in 1977 and 1989. When looking ahead, despite model limitations in simulating mixed layer depth (MLD) in the North Pacific, global warming is robustly expected to decrease MLD. This could potentially reverse the observed trend of slowing down of North Pacific climate variability and its effects on marine ecosystems.

Bringing the ecosystem services concept into marine management decisions, supporting ecosystems-based management.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tweddle, J. F.; Byg, A.; Davies, I.; Gubbins, M.; Irvine, K.; Kafas, A.; Kenter, J.; MacDonald, A.; Murray, R. B. O.; Potts, T.; Slater, A. M.; Wright, K.; Scott, B. E.

2016-02-01

The marine environment is under increasing use, putting pressure on marine ecosystems and increasing competition for space. New activities (e.g. renewable energy developments), evolving marine policies (e.g. implementation of marine protected areas), and climate change may drive changes in biodiversity and resulting ecosystem services (ES) that society and business utilise from coastal and marine systems. A process is needed that integrates ecological assessment of changes with stakeholder perceptions and valuation of ES, whilst balancing ease of application with the ability to deal with complex social-economic-ecological issues. The project "Cooperative participatory assessment of the impact of renewable technology on ecosystem services: CORPORATES" involved natural and social scientists, law and policy experts, and marine managers, with the aim of promoting more integrated decision making using ES concepts in marine management. CORPORATES developed a process to bring ES concepts into stakeholders' awareness. The interactive process, involving 2 workshops, employs interludes of knowledge exchange by experts on ecological processes underpinning ES and on law and policy. These enable mapping of benefits linked to activities, participatory system modelling, and deliberation of policy impacts on different sectors. The workshops were attended by industry representatives, regulatory/advisory partners, and other stakeholders (NGOs, SMEs, recreationalists, local government). Mixed sector groups produced new insights into links between activities and ES, and highlighted cross-sector concerns. Here we present the aspects of the process that successfully built shared understanding between industry and stakeholders of inter-linkages and interactions between ES, benefits, activities, and economic and cultural values. These methods provide an ES-based decision-support model for exchanging societal-ecological knowledge and providing stakeholder interaction in marine planning

Bringing the ecosystem services concept into marine management decisions, supporting ecosystems-based management.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tweddle, J. F.; Byg, A.; Davies, I.; Gubbins, M.; Irvine, K.; Kafas, A.; Kenter, J.; MacDonald, A.; Murray, R. B. O.; Potts, T.; Slater, A. M.; Wright, K.; Scott, B. E.

2016-12-01

The marine environment is under increasing use, putting pressure on marine ecosystems and increasing competition for space. New activities (e.g. renewable energy developments), evolving marine policies (e.g. implementation of marine protected areas), and climate change may drive changes in biodiversity and resulting ecosystem services (ES) that society and business utilise from coastal and marine systems. A process is needed that integrates ecological assessment of changes with stakeholder perceptions and valuation of ES, whilst balancing ease of application with the ability to deal with complex social-economic-ecological issues. The project "Cooperative participatory assessment of the impact of renewable technology on ecosystem services: CORPORATES" involved natural and social scientists, law and policy experts, and marine managers, with the aim of promoting more integrated decision making using ES concepts in marine management. CORPORATES developed a process to bring ES concepts into stakeholders' awareness. The interactive process, involving 2 workshops, employs interludes of knowledge exchange by experts on ecological processes underpinning ES and on law and policy. These enable mapping of benefits linked to activities, participatory system modelling, and deliberation of policy impacts on different sectors. The workshops were attended by industry representatives, regulatory/advisory partners, and other stakeholders (NGOs, SMEs, recreationalists, local government). Mixed sector groups produced new insights into links between activities and ES, and highlighted cross-sector concerns. Here we present the aspects of the process that successfully built shared understanding between industry and stakeholders of inter-linkages and interactions between ES, benefits, activities, and economic and cultural values. These methods provide an ES-based decision-support model for exchanging societal-ecological knowledge and providing stakeholder interaction in marine planning

An Integrated Multivariable Visualization Tool for Marine Sanctuary Climate Assessments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shein, K. A.; Johnston, S.; Stachniewicz, J.; Duncan, B.; Cecil, D.; Ansari, S.; Urzen, M.

2012-12-01

The comprehensive development and use of ecological climate impact assessments by ecosystem managers can be limited by data access and visualization methods that require a priori knowledge about the various large and complex climate data products necessary to those impact assessments. In addition, it can be difficult to geographically and temporally integrate climate and ecological data to fully characterize climate-driven ecological impacts. To address these considerations, we have enhanced and extended the functionality of the NOAA National Climatic Data Center's Weather and Climate Toolkit (WCT). The WCT is a freely available Java-based tool designed to access and display NCDC's georeferenced climate data products (e.g., satellite, radar, and reanalysis gridded data). However, the WCT requires users already know how to obtain the data products, which products are preferred for a given variable, and which products are most relevant to their needs. Developed in cooperation with research and management customers at the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, the Integrated Marine Protected Area Climate Tools (IMPACT) modification to the WCT simplifies or eliminates these requirements, while simultaneously adding core analytical functionality to the tool. Designed for use by marine ecosystem managers, WCT-IMPACT accesses a suite of data products that have been identified as relevant to marine ecosystem climate impact assessments, such as NOAA's Climate Data Records. WCT-IMPACT regularly crops these products to the geographic boundaries of each included marine protected area (MPA), and those clipped regions are processed to produce MPA-specific analytics. The tool retrieves the most appropriate data files based on the user selection of MPA, environmental variable(s), and time frame. Once the data are loaded, they may be visualized, explored, analyzed, and exported to other formats (e.g., Google KML). Multiple variables may be simultaneously visualized using

Going with the flow: the role of ocean circulation in global marine ecosystems under a changing climate.

PubMed

van Gennip, Simon J; Popova, Ekaterina E; Yool, Andrew; Pecl, Gretta T; Hobday, Alistair J; Sorte, Cascade J B

2017-07-01

Ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation and reduced productivity are widely considered to be the major stressors to ocean ecosystems induced by emissions of CO 2 . However, an overlooked stressor is the change in ocean circulation in response to climate change. Strong changes in the intensity and position of the western boundary currents have already been observed, and the consequences of such changes for ecosystems are beginning to emerge. In this study, we address climatically induced changes in ocean circulation on a global scale but relevant to propagule dispersal for species inhabiting global shelf ecosystems, using a high-resolution global ocean model run under the IPCC RCP 8.5 scenario. The ¼ degree model resolution allows improved regional realism of the ocean circulation beyond that of available CMIP5-class models. We use a Lagrangian approach forced by modelled ocean circulation to simulate the circulation pathways that disperse planktonic life stages. Based on trajectory backtracking, we identify present-day coastal retention, dominant flow and dispersal range for coastal regions at the global scale. Projecting into the future, we identify areas of the strongest projected circulation change and present regional examples with the most significant modifications in their dominant pathways. Climatically induced changes in ocean circulation should be considered as an additional stressor of marine ecosystems in a similar way to ocean warming or acidification. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Comparative analysis of marine ecosystems: workshop on predator-prey interactions.

PubMed

Bailey, Kevin M; Ciannelli, Lorenzo; Hunsicker, Mary; Rindorf, Anna; Neuenfeldt, Stefan; Möllmann, Christian; Guichard, Frederic; Huse, Geir

2010-10-23

Climate and human influences on marine ecosystems are largely manifested by changes in predator-prey interactions. It follows that ecosystem-based management of the world's oceans requires a better understanding of food web relationships. An international workshop on predator-prey interactions in marine ecosystems was held at the Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA on 16-18 March 2010. The meeting brought together scientists from diverse fields of expertise including theoretical ecology, animal behaviour, fish and seabird ecology, statistics, fisheries science and ecosystem modelling. The goals of the workshop were to critically examine the methods of scaling-up predator-prey interactions from local observations to systems, the role of shifting ecological processes with scale changes, and the complexity and organizational structure in trophic interactions.

Interactive effects of global climate change and pollution on marine microbes: the way ahead.

PubMed

Coelho, Francisco J R C; Santos, Ana L; Coimbra, Joana; Almeida, Adelaide; Cunha, Angela; Cleary, Daniel F R; Calado, Ricardo; Gomes, Newton C M

2013-06-01

Global climate change has the potential to seriously and adversely affect marine ecosystem functioning. Numerous experimental and modeling studies have demonstrated how predicted ocean acidification and increased ultraviolet radiation (UVR) can affect marine microbes. However, researchers have largely ignored interactions between ocean acidification, increased UVR and anthropogenic pollutants in marine environments. Such interactions can alter chemical speciation and the bioavailability of several organic and inorganic pollutants with potentially deleterious effects, such as modifying microbial-mediated detoxification processes. Microbes mediate major biogeochemical cycles, providing fundamental ecosystems services such as environmental detoxification and recovery. It is, therefore, important that we understand how predicted changes to oceanic pH, UVR, and temperature will affect microbial pollutant detoxification processes in marine ecosystems. The intrinsic characteristics of microbes, such as their short generation time, small size, and functional role in biogeochemical cycles combined with recent advances in molecular techniques (e.g., metagenomics and metatranscriptomics) make microbes excellent models to evaluate the consequences of various climate change scenarios on detoxification processes in marine ecosystems. In this review, we highlight the importance of microbial microcosm experiments, coupled with high-resolution molecular biology techniques, to provide a critical experimental framework to start understanding how climate change, anthropogenic pollution, and microbiological interactions may affect marine ecosystems in the future.

Interactive effects of global climate change and pollution on marine microbes: the way ahead

PubMed Central

Coelho, Francisco J R C; Santos, Ana L; Coimbra, Joana; Almeida, Adelaide; Cunha, Ângela; Cleary, Daniel F R; Calado, Ricardo; Gomes, Newton C M

2013-01-01

Global climate change has the potential to seriously and adversely affect marine ecosystem functioning. Numerous experimental and modeling studies have demonstrated how predicted ocean acidification and increased ultraviolet radiation (UVR) can affect marine microbes. However, researchers have largely ignored interactions between ocean acidification, increased UVR and anthropogenic pollutants in marine environments. Such interactions can alter chemical speciation and the bioavailability of several organic and inorganic pollutants with potentially deleterious effects, such as modifying microbial-mediated detoxification processes. Microbes mediate major biogeochemical cycles, providing fundamental ecosystems services such as environmental detoxification and recovery. It is, therefore, important that we understand how predicted changes to oceanic pH, UVR, and temperature will affect microbial pollutant detoxification processes in marine ecosystems. The intrinsic characteristics of microbes, such as their short generation time, small size, and functional role in biogeochemical cycles combined with recent advances in molecular techniques (e.g., metagenomics and metatranscriptomics) make microbes excellent models to evaluate the consequences of various climate change scenarios on detoxification processes in marine ecosystems. In this review, we highlight the importance of microbial microcosm experiments, coupled with high-resolution molecular biology techniques, to provide a critical experimental framework to start understanding how climate change, anthropogenic pollution, and microbiological interactions may affect marine ecosystems in the future. PMID:23789087

A protocol for the intercomparison of marine fishery and ecosystem models: Fish-MIP v1.0

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tittensor, Derek P.; Eddy, Tyler D.; Lotze, Heike K.; Galbraith, Eric D.; Cheung, William; Barange, Manuel; Blanchard, Julia L.; Bopp, Laurent; Bryndum-Buchholz, Andrea; Büchner, Matthias; Bulman, Catherine; Carozza, David A.; Christensen, Villy; Coll, Marta; Dunne, John P.; Fernandes, Jose A.; Fulton, Elizabeth A.; Hobday, Alistair J.; Huber, Veronika; Jennings, Simon; Jones, Miranda; Lehodey, Patrick; Link, Jason S.; Mackinson, Steve; Maury, Olivier; Niiranen, Susa; Oliveros-Ramos, Ricardo; Roy, Tilla; Schewe, Jacob; Shin, Yunne-Jai; Silva, Tiago; Stock, Charles A.; Steenbeek, Jeroen; Underwood, Philip J.; Volkholz, Jan; Watson, James R.; Walker, Nicola D.

2018-04-01

Model intercomparison studies in the climate and Earth sciences communities have been crucial to building credibility and coherence for future projections. They have quantified variability among models, spurred model development, contrasted within- and among-model uncertainty, assessed model fits to historical data, and provided ensemble projections of future change under specified scenarios. Given the speed and magnitude of anthropogenic change in the marine environment and the consequent effects on food security, biodiversity, marine industries, and society, the time is ripe for similar comparisons among models of fisheries and marine ecosystems. Here, we describe the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project protocol version 1.0 (Fish-MIP v1.0), part of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP), which is a cross-sectoral network of climate impact modellers. Given the complexity of the marine ecosystem, this class of models has substantial heterogeneity of purpose, scope, theoretical underpinning, processes considered, parameterizations, resolution (grain size), and spatial extent. This heterogeneity reflects the lack of a unified understanding of the marine ecosystem and implies that the assemblage of all models is more likely to include a greater number of relevant processes than any single model. The current Fish-MIP protocol is designed to allow these heterogeneous models to be forced with common Earth System Model (ESM) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) outputs under prescribed scenarios for historic (from the 1950s) and future (to 2100) time periods; it will be adapted to CMIP phase 6 (CMIP6) in future iterations. It also describes a standardized set of outputs for each participating Fish-MIP model to produce. This enables the broad characterization of differences between and uncertainties within models and projections when assessing climate and fisheries impacts on marine ecosystems and the

Development of an Online Climate and Fisheries Data Dashboard for Stakeholders in the Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Young Morse, R.

2016-12-01

Fisheries managers make decisions that shape the future of ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. These decisions are often made without reference to environmental conditions, or are made assuming that past conditions (physical conditions, productivity, and species distributions) will persist. The rapid changes experienced in the Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (NES LME), as well as the high degree of natural variability in this system, are prompting new discussions about how to incorporate environmental information into fisheries policy and management and into the industry. Through this project, we are facilitating access to fisheries and climate data for fisheries stakeholders in the Northeast through the creation of an online dynamic data dashboard. The primary goal is to make complex climate-relevant data accessible and easy to understand. Information on past, present, and future environmental conditions in the NES LME are presented in the context of fisheries dependent data. Working with marine fisheries stakeholders, including fisheries management council members, industry leaders and non-profits, we have developed a suite of open source processes and tools to acquire and subset climate relevant data from a variety of sources (satellites, sensors, models), develop long range climatologies, and display through dynamically updated interactive data visualizations. The resulting dashboard allows users to quickly assess conditions in the ocean and evaluate them in the context of past and projected change.

Communicating Climate and Ecosystem Change in the Arctic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soreide, N. N.; Overland, J. E.; Calder, J. A.; Rodionov, S.

2005-12-01

There is an explosion of interest in Northern Hemisphere climate, highlighting the importance of recent changes in the Arctic on mid-latitude climate and its impact on marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Traditional sea ice and tundra dominated arctic ecosystems are being reorganizing into warmer sub-arctic ecosystem types. Over the previous two years we have developed a comprehensive, near real-time arctic change detection protocol to track physical and biological changes for presentation on the web: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect. The effort provides a continuous update to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) Report, released in November 2004. Principles for the protocol include an accessible narrative style, scientifically credible and objective indicators, notes multiple uses for the information, acknowledges uncertainties, and balances having too many indicators-which leads to information overload-and too few-which does not capture the complexity of the system. Screening criteria include concreteness, public awareness, being understandable, availability of historical time series, and sensitivity. The site provides sufficient information for an individual to make their own assessment regarding the balance of the evidence for tracking change. The product provides an overview, recent news, links to many arctic websites, and highlights climate, global impacts, land and marine ecosystems, and human consequences. Since its inception a year ago, it has averaged about 9000 hits an day on the web, and is a major information source as determined by Google search. The future direction focuses on understanding the causes for change. In spring 2005 we also presented a near real-time ecological and climatic surveillance website for the Bering Sea: www.beringclimate.noaa.gov. The site provides up-to-date information which ties northward shifts of fish, invertebrate and marine mammal populations to physical changes in the Arctic. This site is more technical than the

Tool kit development to refine and visualize essential climate data and information for marine protected areas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cecil, L.; Stachniewicz, J.; Shein, K. A.; Ansari, S.; Jarvis, C.

2013-05-01

Marine ecosystem responses to climate variability and change such as changing water temperature, water chemistry (e.g., pH, salinity), water level, or storminess may result in adverse impacts including mass mortality, loss of habitat, increased disease susceptibility, and trophic cascade feedbacks. Unfortunately, while marine ecosystem resource managers are aware of these threats, they often lack sufficient expertise with identifying, accessing and using the many large and complex climate data products that would inform ecosystem-scale climate impact assessments. NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has been working with the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Ocean Climate Center to enhance and expand the functionality of NCDC's Weather and Climate Toolkit (WCT) to begin to address this limitation. The WCT is a freely available, Java-based user interface (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wct/) designed to access, analyze, and display a variety of NCDC's georeferenced climate data products (e.g., satellite data, radar, reanalysis datasets, in-situ observations). However, the WCT requires the user to have already identified a data set of interest and gained access to it. This can limit its utility by users who are not knowledgeable about which data sets are relevant to their needs and where those data sets can be found. The Integrated Marine Protected Area Climate Tools (IMPACT) prototype modification to the WCT addresses those requirements through an iterative process between climate scientists and resource managers. The WCT-IMPACT prototype couples a user query approach with a quasi-expert system that determines, retrieves, and loads the appropriate data products for visualization and analysis by the user. Relevant data products are identified based on the environmental variables in which ecosystem managers have indicated an importance to their ecosystems. To improve response time, the user, through the WCT-IMPACT interface, crops (or subsets) the

Climate, ecosystems, and planetary futures: The challenge to predict life in Earth system models.

PubMed

Bonan, Gordon B; Doney, Scott C

2018-02-02

Many global change stresses on terrestrial and marine ecosystems affect not only ecosystem services that are essential to humankind, but also the trajectory of future climate by altering energy and mass exchanges with the atmosphere. Earth system models, which simulate terrestrial and marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles, offer a common framework for ecological research related to climate processes; analyses of vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation; and climate change mitigation. They provide an opportunity to move beyond physical descriptors of atmospheric and oceanic states to societally relevant quantities such as wildfire risk, habitat loss, water availability, and crop, fishery, and timber yields. To achieve this, the science of climate prediction must be extended to a more multifaceted Earth system prediction that includes the biosphere and its resources. Copyright © 2018, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Marine reserves can mitigate and promote adaptation to climate change

PubMed Central

Roberts, Callum M.; O’Leary, Bethan C.; McCauley, Douglas J.; Cury, Philippe Maurice; Duarte, Carlos M.; Lubchenco, Jane; Pauly, Daniel; Sáenz-Arroyo, Andrea; Sumaila, Ussif Rashid; Wilson, Rod W.; Worm, Boris; Castilla, Juan Carlos

2017-01-01

Strong decreases in greenhouse gas emissions are required to meet the reduction trajectory resolved within the 2015 Paris Agreement. However, even these decreases will not avert serious stress and damage to life on Earth, and additional steps are needed to boost the resilience of ecosystems, safeguard their wildlife, and protect their capacity to supply vital goods and services. We discuss how well-managed marine reserves may help marine ecosystems and people adapt to five prominent impacts of climate change: acidification, sea-level rise, intensification of storms, shifts in species distribution, and decreased productivity and oxygen availability, as well as their cumulative effects. We explore the role of managed ecosystems in mitigating climate change by promoting carbon sequestration and storage and by buffering against uncertainty in management, environmental fluctuations, directional change, and extreme events. We highlight both strengths and limitations and conclude that marine reserves are a viable low-tech, cost-effective adaptation strategy that would yield multiple cobenefits from local to global scales, improving the outlook for the environment and people into the future. PMID:28584096

Marine reserves can mitigate and promote adaptation to climate change.

PubMed

Roberts, Callum M; O'Leary, Bethan C; McCauley, Douglas J; Cury, Philippe Maurice; Duarte, Carlos M; Lubchenco, Jane; Pauly, Daniel; Sáenz-Arroyo, Andrea; Sumaila, Ussif Rashid; Wilson, Rod W; Worm, Boris; Castilla, Juan Carlos

2017-06-13

Strong decreases in greenhouse gas emissions are required to meet the reduction trajectory resolved within the 2015 Paris Agreement. However, even these decreases will not avert serious stress and damage to life on Earth, and additional steps are needed to boost the resilience of ecosystems, safeguard their wildlife, and protect their capacity to supply vital goods and services. We discuss how well-managed marine reserves may help marine ecosystems and people adapt to five prominent impacts of climate change: acidification, sea-level rise, intensification of storms, shifts in species distribution, and decreased productivity and oxygen availability, as well as their cumulative effects. We explore the role of managed ecosystems in mitigating climate change by promoting carbon sequestration and storage and by buffering against uncertainty in management, environmental fluctuations, directional change, and extreme events. We highlight both strengths and limitations and conclude that marine reserves are a viable low-tech, cost-effective adaptation strategy that would yield multiple cobenefits from local to global scales, improving the outlook for the environment and people into the future.

Shrinking of fishes exacerbates impacts of global ocean changes on marine ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cheung, William W. L.; Sarmiento, Jorge L.; Dunne, John; Frölicher, Thomas L.; Lam, Vicky W. Y.; Deng Palomares, M. L.; Watson, Reg; Pauly, Daniel

2013-03-01

Changes in temperature, oxygen content and other ocean biogeochemical properties directly affect the ecophysiology of marine water-breathing organisms. Previous studies suggest that the most prominent biological responses are changes in distribution, phenology and productivity. Both theory and empirical observations also support the hypothesis that warming and reduced oxygen will reduce body size of marine fishes. However, the extent to which such changes would exacerbate the impacts of climate and ocean changes on global marine ecosystems remains unexplored. Here, we employ a model to examine the integrated biological responses of over 600 species of marine fishes due to changes in distribution, abundance and body size. The model has an explicit representation of ecophysiology, dispersal, distribution, and population dynamics. We show that assemblage-averaged maximum body weight is expected to shrink by 14-24% globally from 2000 to 2050 under a high-emission scenario. About half of this shrinkage is due to change in distribution and abundance, the remainder to changes in physiology. The tropical and intermediate latitudinal areas will be heavily impacted, with an average reduction of more than 20%. Our results provide a new dimension to understanding the integrated impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems.

Emergent Properties Delineate Marine Ecosystem Perturbation and Recovery.

PubMed

Link, Jason S; Pranovi, Fabio; Libralato, Simone; Coll, Marta; Christensen, Villy; Solidoro, Cosimo; Fulton, Elizabeth A

2015-11-01

Whether there are common and emergent patterns from marine ecosystems remains an important question because marine ecosystems provide billions of dollars of ecosystem services to the global community, but face many perturbations with significant consequences. Here, we develop cumulative trophic patterns for marine ecosystems, featuring sigmoidal cumulative biomass (cumB)-trophic level (TL) and 'hockey-stick' production (cumP)-cumB curves. The patterns have a trophodynamic theoretical basis and capitalize on emergent, fundamental, and invariant features of marine ecosystems. These patterns have strong global support, being observed in over 120 marine ecosystems. Parameters from these curves elucidate the direction and magnitude of marine ecosystem perturbation or recovery; if biomass and productivity can be monitored effectively over time, such relations may prove to be broadly useful. Curve parameters are proposed as possible ecosystem thresholds, perhaps to better manage the marine ecosystems of the world. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

How Does Climate Change Affect the Bering Sea Ecosystem?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sigler, Michael F.; Harvey, H. Rodger; Ashjian, Carin J.; Lomas, Michael W.; Napp, Jeffrey M.; Stabeno, Phyllis J.; Van Pelt, Thomas I.

2010-11-01

The Bering Sea is one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world, sustaining nearly half of U.S. annual commercial fish catches and providing food and cultural value to thousands of coastal and island residents. Fish and crab are abundant in the Bering Sea; whales, seals, and seabirds migrate there every year. In winter, the topography, latitude, atmosphere, and ocean circulation combine to produce a sea ice advance in the Bering Sea unmatched elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, and in spring the retreating ice; longer daylight hours; and nutrient-rich, deep-ocean waters forced up onto the broad continental shelf result in intense marine productivity (Figure 1). This seasonal ice cover is a major driver of Bering Sea ecology, making this ecosystem particularly sensitive to changes in climate. Predicted changes in ice cover in the coming decades have intensified concern about the future of this economically and culturally important region. In response, the North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) entered into a partnership in 2007 to support the Bering Sea Project, a comprehensive $52 million investigation to understand how climate change is affecting the Bering Sea ecosystem, ranging from lower trophic levels (e.g., plankton) to fish, seabirds, marine mammals, and, ultimately, humans. The project integrates two research programs, the NSF Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) and the NPRB Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research Program (BSIERP), with substantial in-kind contributions from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Climate impacts on global hot spots of marine biodiversity

PubMed Central

Ramírez, Francisco; Afán, Isabel; Davis, Lloyd S.; Chiaradia, André

2017-01-01

Human activities drive environmental changes at scales that could potentially cause ecosystem collapses in the marine environment. We combined information on marine biodiversity with spatial assessments of the impacts of climate change to identify the key areas to prioritize for the conservation of global marine biodiversity. This process identified six marine regions of exceptional biodiversity based on global distributions of 1729 species of fish, 124 marine mammals, and 330 seabirds. Overall, these hot spots of marine biodiversity coincide with areas most severely affected by global warming. In particular, these marine biodiversity hot spots have undergone local to regional increasing water temperatures, slowing current circulation, and decreasing primary productivity. Furthermore, when we overlapped these hot spots with available industrial fishery data, albeit coarser than our estimates of climate impacts, they suggest a worrying coincidence whereby the world’s richest areas for marine biodiversity are also those areas mostly affected by both climate change and industrial fishing. In light of these findings, we offer an adaptable framework for determining local to regional areas of special concern for the conservation of marine biodiversity. This has exposed the need for finer-scaled fishery data to assist in the management of global fisheries if the accumulative, but potentially preventable, effect of fishing on climate change impacts is to be minimized within areas prioritized for marine biodiversity conservation. PMID:28261659

Climate impacts on global hot spots of marine biodiversity.

PubMed

Ramírez, Francisco; Afán, Isabel; Davis, Lloyd S; Chiaradia, André

2017-02-01

Human activities drive environmental changes at scales that could potentially cause ecosystem collapses in the marine environment. We combined information on marine biodiversity with spatial assessments of the impacts of climate change to identify the key areas to prioritize for the conservation of global marine biodiversity. This process identified six marine regions of exceptional biodiversity based on global distributions of 1729 species of fish, 124 marine mammals, and 330 seabirds. Overall, these hot spots of marine biodiversity coincide with areas most severely affected by global warming. In particular, these marine biodiversity hot spots have undergone local to regional increasing water temperatures, slowing current circulation, and decreasing primary productivity. Furthermore, when we overlapped these hot spots with available industrial fishery data, albeit coarser than our estimates of climate impacts, they suggest a worrying coincidence whereby the world's richest areas for marine biodiversity are also those areas mostly affected by both climate change and industrial fishing. In light of these findings, we offer an adaptable framework for determining local to regional areas of special concern for the conservation of marine biodiversity. This has exposed the need for finer-scaled fishery data to assist in the management of global fisheries if the accumulative, but potentially preventable, effect of fishing on climate change impacts is to be minimized within areas prioritized for marine biodiversity conservation.

Climatic vulnerability of the world’s freshwater and marine fishes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Comte, Lise; Olden, Julian D.

2017-10-01

Climate change is a mounting threat to biological diversity, compromising ecosystem structure and function, and undermining the delivery of essential services worldwide. As the magnitude and speed of climate change accelerates, greater understanding of the taxonomy and geography of climatic vulnerability is critical to guide effective conservation action. However, many uncertainties remain regarding the degree and variability of climatic risk within entire clades and across vast ecosystem boundaries. Here we integrate physiological estimates of thermal sensitivity for 2,960 ray-finned fishes with future climatic exposure, and demonstrate that global patterns of vulnerability differ substantially between freshwater and marine realms. Our results suggest that climatic vulnerability for freshwater faunas will be predominantly determined by elevated levels of climatic exposure predicted for the Northern Hemisphere, whereas marine faunas in the tropics will be the most at risk, reflecting their higher intrinsic sensitivity. Spatial overlap between areas of high physiological risk and high human impacts, together with evidence of low past rates of evolution in upper thermal tolerance, highlights the urgency of global conservation actions and policy initiatives if harmful climate effects on the world’s fishes are to be mitigated in the future.

Causes and projections of abrupt climate-driven ecosystem shifts in the North Atlantic.

PubMed

Beaugrand, Grégory; Edwards, Martin; Brander, Keith; Luczak, Christophe; Ibanez, Frederic

2008-11-01

Warming of the global climate is now unequivocal and its impact on Earth' functional units has become more apparent. Here, we show that marine ecosystems are not equally sensitive to climate change and reveal a critical thermal boundary where a small increase in temperature triggers abrupt ecosystem shifts seen across multiple trophic levels. This large-scale boundary is located in regions where abrupt ecosystem shifts have been reported in the North Atlantic sector and thereby allows us to link these shifts by a global common phenomenon. We show that these changes alter the biodiversity and carrying capacity of ecosystems and may, combined with fishing, precipitate the reduction of some stocks of Atlantic cod already severely impacted by exploitation. These findings offer a way to anticipate major ecosystem changes and to propose adaptive strategies for marine exploited resources such as cod in order to minimize social and economic consequences.

Large-scale marine ecosystem change and the conservation of marine mammals

USGS Publications Warehouse

O'Shea, T.J.; Odell, D.K.

2008-01-01

Papers in this Special Feature stem from a symposium on large-scale ecosystem change and the conservation of marine mammals convened at the 86th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists in June 2006. Major changes are occurring in multiple aspects of the marine environment at unprecedented rates, within the life spans of some individual marine mammals. Drivers of change include shifts in climate, acoustic pollution, disturbances to trophic structure, fisheries interactions, harmful algal blooms, and environmental contaminants. This Special Feature provides an in-depth examination of 3 issues that are particularly troublesome. The 1st article notes the huge spatial and temporal scales of change to which marine mammals are showing ecological responses, and how these species can function as sentinels of such change. The 2nd paper describes the serious problems arising from conflicts with fisheries, and the 3rd contribution reviews the growing issues associated with underwater noise. ?? 2008 American Society of Mammalogists.

Emergence of modern marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Hull, Pincelli M

2017-06-05

The structure and function of marine ecosystems are not fixed. Instead, major innovations - from the origin of oxygenic photosynthesis, to the evolution of reefs or of deep bioturbation, to the rise of pelagic calcifiers - have changed biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem dynamics. As a result, modern marine ecosystems are fundamentally different from those in the distant past. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Marine Research Infrastructure collaboration in the COOPLUS project framework - Promoting synergies for marine ecosystems studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beranzoli, L.; Best, M.; Embriaco, D.; Favali, P.; Juniper, K.; Lo Bue, N.; Lara-Lopez, A.; Materia, P.; Ó Conchubhair, D.; O'Rourke, E.; Proctor, R.; Weller, R. A.

2017-12-01

Understanding effects on marine ecosystems of multiple drivers at various scales; from regional such as climate and ocean circulation, to local, such as seafloor gas emissions and harmful underwater noise, requires long time-series of integrated and standardised datasets. Large-scale research infrastructures for ocean observation are able to provide such time-series for a variety of ocean process physical parameters (mass and energy exchanges among surface, water column and benthic boundary layer) that constitute important and necessary measures of environmental conditions and change/development over time. Information deduced from these data is essential for the study, modelling and prediction of marine ecosystems changes and can reveal and potentially confirm deterioration and threats. The COOPLUS European Commission project brings together research infrastructures with the aim of coordinating multilateral cooperation among RIs and identifying common priorities, actions, instruments, resources. COOPLUS will produce a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) which will be a shared roadmap for mid to long-term collaboration. In particular, marine RIs collaborating in COOPLUS, namely the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory: EMSO (Europe), the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI, USA), Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), and the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS, Australia), can represent a source of important data for researchers of marine ecosystems. The RIs can then, in turn, receive suggestions from researchers for implementing new measurements and stimulating cross-cutting collaborations and data integration and standardisation from their user community. This poster provides a description of EMSO, OOI, ONC and IMOS for the benefit of marine ecosystem studies and presents examples of where the analyses of time-series have revealed noteworthy environmental conditions, temporal trends and events.

A review of climate-driven mismatches between interdependent phenophases in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

PubMed

Donnelly, Alison; Caffarra, Amelia; O'Neill, Bridget F

2011-11-01

Mismatches in phenology between mutually dependent species, resulting from climate change, can have far-reaching consequences throughout an ecosystem at both higher and lower trophic levels. Rising temperatures, due to climate warming, have resulted in advances in development and changes in behaviour of many organisms around the world. However, not all species or phenophases are responding to this increase in temperature at the same rate, thus creating a disruption to previously synchronised interdependent key life-cycle stages. Mismatches have been reported between plants and pollinators, predators and prey, and pests and hosts. Here, we review mismatches between interdependent phenophases at different trophic levels resulting from climate change. We categorized the studies into (1) terrestrial (natural and agricultural) ecosystems, and (2) aquatic (freshwater and marine) ecosystems. As expected, we found reports of 'winners' and 'losers' in each system, such as earlier emergence of prey enabling partial avoidance of predators, potential reductions in crop yield if herbivore pests emerge before their predators and possible declines in marine biodiversity due to disruption in plankton-fish phenologies. Furthermore, in the marine environment rising temperatures have resulted in synchrony in a previously mismatched prey and predator system, resulting in an abrupt population decline in the prey species. The examples reviewed suggest that more research into the complex interactions between species in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is necessary to make conclusive predictions of how climate warming may impact the fragile balances within ecosystems in future.

THE RESPONSE OF MARINE ECOSYSTEMS TO CLIMATE VARIABILITY ASSOCIATED WITH THE NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION

EPA Science Inventory

A strong association is documented between variability of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and changes in various trophic levels of the marine ecosystems of the North Atlantic. Examples are presented for phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthos, fish, marine diseases, whales and s...

Climate of the Arctic marine environment.

PubMed

Walsh, John E

2008-03-01

The climate of the Arctic marine environment is characterized by strong seasonality in the incoming solar radiation and by tremendous spatial variations arising from a variety of surface types, including open ocean, sea ice, large islands, and proximity to major landmasses. Interannual and decadal-scale variations are prominent features of Arctic climate, complicating the distinction between natural and anthropogenically driven variations. Nevertheless, climate models consistently indicate that the Arctic is the most climatically sensitive region of the Northern Hemisphere, especially near the sea ice margins. The Arctic marine environment has shown changes over the past several decades, and these changes are part of a broader global warming that exceeds the range of natural variability over the past 1000 years. Record minima of sea ice coverage during the past few summers and increased melt from Greenland have important implications for the hydrographic regime of the Arctic marine environment. The recent changes in the atmosphere (temperature, precipitation, pressure), sea ice, and ocean appear to be a coordinated response to systematic variations of the large-scale atmospheric circulation, superimposed on a general warming that is likely associated with increasing greenhouse gases. The changes have been sufficiently large in some sectors (e.g., the Bering/Chukchi Seas) that consequences for marine ecosystems appear to be underway. Global climate models indicate an additional warming of several degrees Celsius in much of the Arctic marine environment by 2050. However, the warming is seasonal (largest in autumn and winter), spatially variable, and closely associated with further retreat of sea ice. Additional changes predicted for 2050 are a general decrease of sea level pressure (largest in the Bering sector) and an increase of precipitation. While predictions of changes in storminess cannot be made with confidence, the predicted reduction of sea ice cover will

Climate change is projected to reduce carrying capacity and redistribute species richness in North Pacific pelagic marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Woodworth-Jefcoats, Phoebe A; Polovina, Jeffrey J; Drazen, Jeffrey C

2017-03-01

Climate change is expected to impact all aspects of marine ecosystems, including fisheries. Here, we use output from a suite of 11 earth system models to examine projected changes in two ecosystem-defining variables: temperature and food availability. In particular, we examine projected changes in epipelagic temperature and, as a proxy for food availability, zooplankton density. We find that under RCP8.5, a high business-as-usual greenhouse gas scenario, increasing temperatures may alter the spatial distribution of tuna and billfish species richness across the North Pacific basin. Furthermore, warmer waters and declining zooplankton densities may act together to lower carrying capacity for commercially valuable fish by 2-5% per decade over the 21st century. These changes have the potential to significantly impact the magnitude, composition, and distribution of commercial fish catch across the pelagic North Pacific. Such changes will in turn ultimately impact commercial fisheries' economic value. Fishery managers should anticipate these climate impacts to ensure sustainable fishery yields and livelihoods. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Evidence that marine reserves enhance resilience to climatic impacts.

PubMed

Micheli, Fiorenza; Saenz-Arroyo, Andrea; Greenley, Ashley; Vazquez, Leonardo; Espinoza Montes, Jose Antonio; Rossetto, Marisa; De Leo, Giulio A

2012-01-01

Establishment of marine protected areas, including fully protected marine reserves, is one of the few management tools available for local communities to combat the deleterious effect of large scale environmental impacts, including global climate change, on ocean ecosystems. Despite the common hope that reserves play this role, empirical evidence of the effectiveness of local protection against global problems is lacking. Here we show that marine reserves increase the resilience of marine populations to a mass mortality event possibly caused by climate-driven hypoxia. Despite high and widespread adult mortality of benthic invertebrates in Baja California, Mexico, that affected populations both within and outside marine reserves, juvenile replenishment of the species that supports local economies, the pink abalone Haliotis corrugata, remained stable within reserves because of large body size and high egg production of the protected adults. Thus, local protection provided resilience through greater resistance and faster recovery of protected populations. Moreover, this benefit extended to adjacent unprotected areas through larval spillover across the edges of the reserves. While climate change mitigation is being debated, coastal communities have few tools to slow down negative impacts of global environmental shifts. These results show that marine protected areas can provide such protection.

Marine birds as indicators of Arctic marine ecosystem health: linking the Northern Ecosystem Initiative to long-term studies.

PubMed

Mallory, Mark L; Gilchrist, H Grant; Braune, Birgit M; Gaston, Anthony J

2006-02-01

Marine birds are sensitive indicators of the condition of marine ecosystems in the Arctic, partly because they feed at the top of the arctic food chain. The Northern Ecosystem Initiative (NEI) recently supported four separate studies that investigated aspects of Arctic marine bird science which simultaneously addressed goals of the NEI to better understand northern ecosystems and their response to environmental stressors. The projects used both scientific and traditional knowledge to examine the relationship between sea-ice, contaminants, and the ecology of marine birds, and to transfer environmental knowledge to students. Results from these investigations confirm that changes are occurring in Arctic environments, and that these are captured through marine bird research. Collectively these studies provided new data that supported NEI objectives of monitoring the health of the Arctic ecosystem, and contributed to Canada's international obligations for Arctic science.

Climate-driven changes in functional biogeography of Arctic marine fish communities

PubMed Central

Primicerio, Raul; Kortsch, Susanne; Aune, Magnus; Dolgov, Andrey V.; Fossheim, Maria; Aschan, Michaela M.

2017-01-01

Climate change triggers poleward shifts in species distribution leading to changes in biogeography. In the marine environment, fish respond quickly to warming, causing community-wide reorganizations, which result in profound changes in ecosystem functioning. Functional biogeography provides a framework to address how ecosystem functioning may be affected by climate change over large spatial scales. However, there are few studies on functional biogeography in the marine environment, and none in the Arctic, where climate-driven changes are most rapid and extensive. We investigated the impact of climate warming on the functional biogeography of the Barents Sea, which is characterized by a sharp zoogeographic divide separating boreal from Arctic species. Our unique dataset covered 52 fish species, 15 functional traits, and 3,660 stations sampled during the recent warming period. We found that the functional traits characterizing Arctic fish communities, mainly composed of small-sized bottom-dwelling benthivores, are being rapidly replaced by traits of incoming boreal species, particularly the larger, longer lived, and more piscivorous species. The changes in functional traits detected in the Arctic can be predicted based on the characteristics of species expected to undergo quick poleward shifts in response to warming. These are the large, generalist, motile species, such as cod and haddock. We show how functional biogeography can provide important insights into the relationship between species composition, diversity, ecosystem functioning, and environmental drivers. This represents invaluable knowledge in a period when communities and ecosystems experience rapid climate-driven changes across biogeographical regions. PMID:29087943

Ocean acidification and its potential effects on marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Guinotte, John M; Fabry, Victoria J

2008-01-01

Ocean acidification is rapidly changing the carbonate system of the world oceans. Past mass extinction events have been linked to ocean acidification, and the current rate of change in seawater chemistry is unprecedented. Evidence suggests that these changes will have significant consequences for marine taxa, particularly those that build skeletons, shells, and tests of biogenic calcium carbonate. Potential changes in species distributions and abundances could propagate through multiple trophic levels of marine food webs, though research into the long-term ecosystem impacts of ocean acidification is in its infancy. This review attempts to provide a general synthesis of known and/or hypothesized biological and ecosystem responses to increasing ocean acidification. Marine taxa covered in this review include tropical reef-building corals, cold-water corals, crustose coralline algae, Halimeda, benthic mollusks, echinoderms, coccolithophores, foraminifera, pteropods, seagrasses, jellyfishes, and fishes. The risk of irreversible ecosystem changes due to ocean acidification should enlighten the ongoing CO(2) emissions debate and make it clear that the human dependence on fossil fuels must end quickly. Political will and significant large-scale investment in clean-energy technologies are essential if we are to avoid the most damaging effects of human-induced climate change, including ocean acidification.

Using ecosystem indicators to track effects of recent warm conditions in Alaska's Large Marine Ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zador, S.; Ormseth, O.; Renner, H.

2016-02-01

A comprehensive suite of ecosystem indicators, defined simply here as time-series of data that measure some component of an ecosystem, can provide a holistic and long-term view of ecosystem status and response to change. In Alaska, marine ecosystem indicators are tracked in the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands and eastern Bering Sea to inform annual ecosystem assessments for managers and scientists, and in particular, to inform ecosystem-based fisheries management. We will present the most recent indicator-based assessments of these three large marine ecosystems (LMEs) that integrate data from climate and oceanographic indicators through lower and upper-trophic biological indicators and highlight regional and species-specific apparent responses to the recent warm anomalies in the North Pacific. We will use comparisons among the three LMEs to illustrate how the effects of the anomalies may propagate through ecosystems and food webs. In general, we expect to see more changes in indicators' status that may be attributed to the Warm Blob in the Gulf of Alaska relative to the other LMEs, as a result of the proximity of the Gulf of Alaska to the areas where the temperature anomalies originated. In the eastern Bering Sea, which is separated from the North Pacific by the Aleutian Island chain, we expect to see more modulated responses. We will discuss the types of biological indicators that are expected to show direct responses to temperatures, such as changes in species distribution, compared to those that may show lagged effects.

Cumulative Human Impacts on Mediterranean and Black Sea Marine Ecosystems: Assessing Current Pressures and Opportunities

PubMed Central

Micheli, Fiorenza; Halpern, Benjamin S.; Walbridge, Shaun; Ciriaco, Saul; Ferretti, Francesco; Fraschetti, Simonetta; Lewison, Rebecca; Nykjaer, Leo; Rosenberg, Andrew A.

2013-01-01

Management of marine ecosystems requires spatial information on current impacts. In several marine regions, including the Mediterranean and Black Sea, legal mandates and agreements to implement ecosystem-based management and spatial plans provide new opportunities to balance uses and protection of marine ecosystems. Analyses of the intensity and distribution of cumulative impacts of human activities directly connected to the ecological goals of these policy efforts are critically needed. Quantification and mapping of the cumulative impact of 22 drivers to 17 marine ecosystems reveals that 20% of the entire basin and 60–99% of the territorial waters of EU member states are heavily impacted, with high human impact occurring in all ecoregions and territorial waters. Less than 1% of these regions are relatively unaffected. This high impact results from multiple drivers, rather than one individual use or stressor, with climatic drivers (increasing temperature and UV, and acidification), demersal fishing, ship traffic, and, in coastal areas, pollution from land accounting for a majority of cumulative impacts. These results show that coordinated management of key areas and activities could significantly improve the condition of these marine ecosystems. PMID:24324585

Decadal-Scale Forecasting of Climate Drivers for Marine Applications.

PubMed

Salinger, J; Hobday, A J; Matear, R J; O'Kane, T J; Risbey, J S; Dunstan, P; Eveson, J P; Fulton, E A; Feng, M; Plagányi, É E; Poloczanska, E S; Marshall, A G; Thompson, P A

Climate influences marine ecosystems on a range of time scales, from weather-scale (days) through to climate-scale (hundreds of years). Understanding of interannual to decadal climate variability and impacts on marine industries has received less attention. Predictability up to 10 years ahead may come from large-scale climate modes in the ocean that can persist over these time scales. In Australia the key drivers of climate variability affecting the marine environment are the Southern Annular Mode, the Indian Ocean Dipole, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, each has phases that are associated with different ocean circulation patterns and regional environmental variables. The roles of these drivers are illustrated with three case studies of extreme events-a marine heatwave in Western Australia, a coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, and flooding in Queensland. Statistical and dynamical approaches are described to generate forecasts of climate drivers that can subsequently be translated to useful information for marine end users making decisions at these time scales. Considerable investment is still needed to support decadal forecasting including improvement of ocean-atmosphere models, enhancement of observing systems on all scales to support initiation of forecasting models, collection of important biological data, and integration of forecasts into decision support tools. Collaboration between forecast developers and marine resource sectors-fisheries, aquaculture, tourism, biodiversity management, infrastructure-is needed to support forecast-based tactical and strategic decisions that reduce environmental risk over annual to decadal time scales. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The pace of shifting climate in marine and terrestrial ecosystems.

PubMed

Burrows, Michael T; Schoeman, David S; Buckley, Lauren B; Moore, Pippa; Poloczanska, Elvira S; Brander, Keith M; Brown, Chris; Bruno, John F; Duarte, Carlos M; Halpern, Benjamin S; Holding, Johnna; Kappel, Carrie V; Kiessling, Wolfgang; O'Connor, Mary I; Pandolfi, John M; Parmesan, Camille; Schwing, Franklin B; Sydeman, William J; Richardson, Anthony J

2011-11-04

Climate change challenges organisms to adapt or move to track changes in environments in space and time. We used two measures of thermal shifts from analyses of global temperatures over the past 50 years to describe the pace of climate change that species should track: the velocity of climate change (geographic shifts of isotherms over time) and the shift in seasonal timing of temperatures. Both measures are higher in the ocean than on land at some latitudes, despite slower ocean warming. These indices give a complex mosaic of predicted range shifts and phenology changes that deviate from simple poleward migration and earlier springs or later falls. They also emphasize potential conservation concerns, because areas of high marine biodiversity often have greater velocities of climate change and seasonal shifts.

Evidence That Marine Reserves Enhance Resilience to Climatic Impacts

PubMed Central

Micheli, Fiorenza; Saenz-Arroyo, Andrea; Greenley, Ashley; Vazquez, Leonardo; Espinoza Montes, Jose Antonio; Rossetto, Marisa; De Leo, Giulio A.

2012-01-01

Establishment of marine protected areas, including fully protected marine reserves, is one of the few management tools available for local communities to combat the deleterious effect of large scale environmental impacts, including global climate change, on ocean ecosystems. Despite the common hope that reserves play this role, empirical evidence of the effectiveness of local protection against global problems is lacking. Here we show that marine reserves increase the resilience of marine populations to a mass mortality event possibly caused by climate-driven hypoxia. Despite high and widespread adult mortality of benthic invertebrates in Baja California, Mexico, that affected populations both within and outside marine reserves, juvenile replenishment of the species that supports local economies, the pink abalone Haliotis corrugata, remained stable within reserves because of large body size and high egg production of the protected adults. Thus, local protection provided resilience through greater resistance and faster recovery of protected populations. Moreover, this benefit extended to adjacent unprotected areas through larval spillover across the edges of the reserves. While climate change mitigation is being debated, coastal communities have few tools to slow down negative impacts of global environmental shifts. These results show that marine protected areas can provide such protection. PMID:22855690

Marine biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and carbon cycles.

PubMed

Beaugrand, Grégory; Edwards, Martin; Legendre, Louis

2010-06-01

Although recent studies suggest that climate change may substantially accelerate the rate of species loss in the biosphere, only a few studies have focused on the potential consequences of a spatial reorganization of biodiversity with global warming. Here, we show a pronounced latitudinal increase in phytoplanktonic and zooplanktonic biodiversity in the extratropical North Atlantic Ocean in recent decades. We also show that this rise in biodiversity paralleled a decrease in the mean size of zooplanktonic copepods and that the reorganization of the planktonic ecosystem toward dominance by smaller organisms may influence the networks in which carbon flows, with negative effects on the downward biological carbon pump and demersal Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). Our study suggests that, contrary to the usual interpretation of increasing biodiversity being a positive emergent property promoting the stability/resilience of ecosystems, the parallel decrease in sizes of planktonic organisms could be viewed in the North Atlantic as reducing some of the services provided by marine ecosystems to humans.

Climate-driven changes in functional biogeography of Arctic marine fish communities.

PubMed

Frainer, André; Primicerio, Raul; Kortsch, Susanne; Aune, Magnus; Dolgov, Andrey V; Fossheim, Maria; Aschan, Michaela M

2017-11-14

Climate change triggers poleward shifts in species distribution leading to changes in biogeography. In the marine environment, fish respond quickly to warming, causing community-wide reorganizations, which result in profound changes in ecosystem functioning. Functional biogeography provides a framework to address how ecosystem functioning may be affected by climate change over large spatial scales. However, there are few studies on functional biogeography in the marine environment, and none in the Arctic, where climate-driven changes are most rapid and extensive. We investigated the impact of climate warming on the functional biogeography of the Barents Sea, which is characterized by a sharp zoogeographic divide separating boreal from Arctic species. Our unique dataset covered 52 fish species, 15 functional traits, and 3,660 stations sampled during the recent warming period. We found that the functional traits characterizing Arctic fish communities, mainly composed of small-sized bottom-dwelling benthivores, are being rapidly replaced by traits of incoming boreal species, particularly the larger, longer lived, and more piscivorous species. The changes in functional traits detected in the Arctic can be predicted based on the characteristics of species expected to undergo quick poleward shifts in response to warming. These are the large, generalist, motile species, such as cod and haddock. We show how functional biogeography can provide important insights into the relationship between species composition, diversity, ecosystem functioning, and environmental drivers. This represents invaluable knowledge in a period when communities and ecosystems experience rapid climate-driven changes across biogeographical regions. Copyright © 2017 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

Observational information on a temperate reef community helps understanding the marine climate and ecosystem shift of the 1980-90s.

PubMed

Gatti, Giulia; Bianchi, Carlo Nike; Montefalcone, Monica; Venturini, Sara; Diviacco, Giovanni; Morri, Carla

2017-01-15

The dearth of long-time series hampers the measurement of the ecosystem change that followed the global marine climate shift of the 1980-90s. The sessile communities of Portofino Promontory reefs (Ligurian Sea, NW Mediterranean) have been discontinuously studied since the 1950s. Collating information from various sources, three periods of investigations have been distinguished: 1) 1950-70s; 2) 1980-90s; 3) 2000-10s. A cooler phase in time 1 was followed by a rapid warming in time 2, to stabilize at about 0.5°C higher in time 3. Human pressure grew impressively, especially after the establishment of a MPA in 1999. Multivariate analyses evidenced a major change of community composition in time 2. Some species disappeared or got rarer, many found refuge at depth, and among the newcomers there were recently introduced alien species. This study demonstrated the importance of descriptive historical data to understand magnitude and pattern of change in the long term evolution of marine ecosystems. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Management of large marine ecosystem based on ecosystem approach].

PubMed

Chu, Jian-song

2011-09-01

Large marine ecosystem (LME) is a large area of ocean characterized by distinct oceanology and ecology. Its natural characteristics require management based on ecosystem approach. A series of international treaties and regulations definitely or indirectly support that it should adopt ecosystem approach to manage LME to achieve the sustainable utilization of marine resources. In practices, some countries such as Canada, Australia, and U.S.A. have adopted ecosystem-based approach to manage their oceans, and some international organizations such as global environment fund committee have carried out a number of LME programs based on ecosystem approach. Aiming at the sustainable development of their fisheries, the regional organizations such as Caribbean Community have established regional fisheries mechanism. However, the adoption of ecosystem approach to manage LME is not only a scientific and legal issue, but also a political matter largely depending on the political will and the mutual cooperation degree of related countries.

Marine Socio-Environmental Covariates: queryable global layers of environmental and anthropogenic variables for marine ecosystem studies.

PubMed

Yeager, Lauren A; Marchand, Philippe; Gill, David A; Baum, Julia K; McPherson, Jana M

2017-07-01

Biophysical conditions, including climate, environmental stress, and habitat availability, are key drivers of many ecological processes (e.g., community assembly and productivity) and associated ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and fishery production). Furthermore, anthropogenic impacts such as coastal development and fishing can have drastic effects on the structure and function of marine ecosystems. Scientists need to account for environmental variation and human impacts to accurately model, manage, and conserve marine ecosystems. Although there are many types of environmental data available from global remote sensing and open-source data products, some are inaccessible to potential end-users because they exist as global layers in high temporal and spatial resolutions which require considerable computational power to process. Additionally, coastal locations often suffer from missing data or data quality issues which limit the utility of some global marine products for coastal sites. Herein we present the Marine Socio-Environmental Covariates dataset for the global oceans, which consists of environmental and anthropogenic variables summarized in ecologically relevant ways. The dataset includes four sets of environmental variables related to biophysical conditions (net primary productivity models corrected for shallow-water reflectance, wave energy including sheltered-coastline corrections) and landscape context (coral reef and land cover within varying radii). We also present two sets of anthropogenic variables, human population density (within varying radii) and distance to large population center, which can serve as indicators of local human impacts. We have paired global, summarized layers available for download with an online data querying platform that allows users to extract data for specific point locations with finer control of summary statistics. In creating these global layers and online platform, we hope to make the data accessible to a

U.S. 2013 National Climate Assessment of Oceans and Marine Resources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Doney, S. C.; Rosenberg, A.

2012-12-01

We will discuss the key findings from the Oceans and Marine Resources chapter of the U.S. 2013 National Climate Assessment. As a nation, we depend on the ocean for seafood, recreation and tourism, cultural heritage, transportation of goods, and increasingly, energy and other critical resources. The U.S. ocean Exclusive Economic Zone extends 200 nautical miles seaward from the coast, spanning an area about 1.7 times the land area of the continental United States and encompassing waters along the U.S. east, west and Gulf coasts, around Alaska and Hawaii, and including the U.S. territories in the Pacific and Caribbean. This vast region is host to a rich diversity of marine plants and animals and a wide range of ecosystems from tropical coral reefs to sea-ice covered, polar waters in the Arctic. We will highlight the current state of knowledge on changing ocean climate conditions, such as warming, sea-ice retreat and ocean acidification, and how these may be impacting valuable marine ecosystems and the array of resources and services we derive from the sea now and into the future. We will also touch on the interaction of climate change impacts with other human factors including pollution and over-fishing.

Upgrading Marine Ecosystem Restoration Using Ecological-Social Concepts.

PubMed

Abelson, Avigdor; Halpern, Benjamin S; Reed, Daniel C; Orth, Robert J; Kendrick, Gary A; Beck, Michael W; Belmaker, Jonathan; Krause, Gesche; Edgar, Graham J; Airoldi, Laura; Brokovich, Eran; France, Robert; Shashar, Nadav; de Blaeij, Arianne; Stambler, Noga; Salameh, Pierre; Shechter, Mordechai; Nelson, Peter A

2016-02-01

Conservation and environmental management are principal countermeasures to the degradation of marine ecosystems and their services. However, in many cases, current practices are insufficient to reverse ecosystem declines. We suggest that restoration ecology , the science underlying the concepts and tools needed to restore ecosystems, must be recognized as an integral element for marine conservation and environmental management. Marine restoration ecology is a young scientific discipline, often with gaps between its application and the supporting science. Bridging these gaps is essential to using restoration as an effective management tool and reversing the decline of marine ecosystems and their services. Ecological restoration should address objectives that include improved ecosystem services, and it therefore should encompass social-ecological elements rather than focusing solely on ecological parameters. We recommend using existing management frameworks to identify clear restoration targets, to apply quantitative tools for assessment, and to make the re-establishment of ecosystem services a criterion for success.

Upgrading Marine Ecosystem Restoration Using Ecological‐Social Concepts

PubMed Central

Abelson, Avigdor; Halpern, Benjamin S.; Reed, Daniel C.; Orth, Robert J.; Kendrick, Gary A.; Beck, Michael W.; Belmaker, Jonathan; Krause, Gesche; Edgar, Graham J.; Airoldi, Laura; Brokovich, Eran; France, Robert; Shashar, Nadav; de Blaeij, Arianne; Stambler, Noga; Salameh, Pierre; Shechter, Mordechai; Nelson, Peter A.

2015-01-01

Conservation and environmental management are principal countermeasures to the degradation of marine ecosystems and their services. However, in many cases, current practices are insufficient to reverse ecosystem declines. We suggest that restoration ecology, the science underlying the concepts and tools needed to restore ecosystems, must be recognized as an integral element for marine conservation and environmental management. Marine restoration ecology is a young scientific discipline, often with gaps between its application and the supporting science. Bridging these gaps is essential to using restoration as an effective management tool and reversing the decline of marine ecosystems and their services. Ecological restoration should address objectives that include improved ecosystem services, and it therefore should encompass social–ecological elements rather than focusing solely on ecological parameters. We recommend using existing management frameworks to identify clear restoration targets, to apply quantitative tools for assessment, and to make the re-establishment of ecosystem services a criterion for success. PMID:26977115

Modeling the impact of watershed management policies on marine ecosystem services with application to Hood Canal, WA, USA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sutherland, D. A.; Kim, C.; Marsik, M.; Spiridonov, G.; Toft, J.; Ruckelshaus, M.; Guerry, A.; Plummer, M.

2011-12-01

Humans obtain numerous benefits from marine ecosystems, including fish to eat; mitigation of storm damage; nutrient and water cycling and primary production; and cultural, aesthetic and recreational values. However, managing these benefits, or ecosystem services, in the marine world relies on an integrated approach that accounts for both marine and watershed activities. Here we present the results of a set of simple, physically-based, and spatially-explicit models that quantify the effects of terrestrial activities on marine ecosystem services. Specifically, we model the circulation and water quality of Hood Canal, WA, USA, a fjord system in Puget Sound where multiple human uses of the nearshore ecosystem (e.g., shellfish aquaculture, recreational Dungeness crab and shellfish harvest) can be compromised when water quality is poor (e.g., hypoxia, excessive non-point source pollution). Linked to the estuarine water quality model is a terrestrial hydrology model that simulates streamflow and nutrient loading, so land cover and climate changes in watersheds can be reflected in the marine environment. In addition, a shellfish aquaculture model is linked to the water quality model to test the sensitivity of the ecosystem service and its value to both terrestrial and marine activities. The modeling framework is general and will be publicly available, allowing easy comparisons of watershed impacts on marine ecosystem services across multiple scales and regions.

Solutions for ecosystem-level protection of ocean systems under climate change.

PubMed

Queirós, Ana M; Huebert, Klaus B; Keyl, Friedemann; Fernandes, Jose A; Stolte, Willem; Maar, Marie; Kay, Susan; Jones, Miranda C; Hamon, Katell G; Hendriksen, Gerrit; Vermard, Youen; Marchal, Paul; Teal, Lorna R; Somerfield, Paul J; Austen, Melanie C; Barange, Manuel; Sell, Anne F; Allen, Icarus; Peck, Myron A

2016-12-01

The Paris Conference of Parties (COP21) agreement renewed momentum for action against climate change, creating the space for solutions for conservation of the ocean addressing two of its largest threats: climate change and ocean acidification (CCOA). Recent arguments that ocean policies disregard a mature conservation research field and that protected areas cannot address climate change may be oversimplistic at this time when dynamic solutions for the management of changing oceans are needed. We propose a novel approach, based on spatial meta-analysis of climate impact models, to improve the positioning of marine protected areas to limit CCOA impacts. We do this by estimating the vulnerability of ocean ecosystems to CCOA in a spatially explicit manner and then co-mapping human activities such as the placement of renewable energy developments and the distribution of marine protected areas. We test this approach in the NE Atlantic considering also how CCOA impacts the base of the food web which supports protected species, an aspect often neglected in conservation studies. We found that, in this case, current regional conservation plans protect areas with low ecosystem-level vulnerability to CCOA, but disregard how species may redistribute to new, suitable and productive habitats. Under current plans, these areas remain open to commercial extraction and other uses. Here, and worldwide, ocean conservation strategies under CCOA must recognize the long-term importance of these habitat refuges, and studies such as this one are needed to identify them. Protecting these areas creates adaptive, climate-ready and ecosystem-level policy options for conservation, suitable for changing oceans. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Marine mammals' influence on ecosystem processes affecting fisheries in the Barents Sea is trivial.

PubMed

Corkeron, Peter J

2009-04-23

Some interpretations of ecosystem-based fishery management include culling marine mammals as an integral component. The current Norwegian policy on marine mammal management is one example. Scientific support for this policy includes the Scenario Barents Sea (SBS) models. These modelled interactions between cod, Gadus morhua, herring, Clupea harengus, capelin, Mallotus villosus and northern minke whales, Balaenoptera acutorostrata. Adding harp seals Phoca groenlandica into this top-down modelling approach resulted in unrealistic model outputs. Another set of models of the Barents Sea fish-fisheries system focused on interactions within and between the three fish populations, fisheries and climate. These model key processes of the system successfully. Continuing calls to support the SBS models despite their failure suggest a belief that marine mammal predation must be a problem for fisheries. The best available scientific evidence provides no justification for marine mammal culls as a primary component of an ecosystem-based approach to managing the fisheries of the Barents Sea.

Marine Mammals and Climate Change in the Pacific Arctic: Impacts & Resilience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moore, S. E.

2014-12-01

Extreme reductions in Arctic sea ice extent and thickness have become a hallmark of climate change, but impacts to the marine ecosystem are poorly understood. As top predators, marine mammals must adapt to biological responses to physical forcing and thereby become sentinels to ecosystem variability and reorganization. Recent sea ice retreats have influenced the ecology of marine mammals in the Pacific Arctic sector. Walruses now often haul out by the thousands along the NW Alaska coast in late summer, and reports of harbor porpoise, humpback, fin and minke whales in the Chukchi Sea demonstrate that these temperate species routinely occur there. In 2010, satellite tagged bowhead whales from Atlantic and Pacific populations met in the Northwest Passage, an overlap thought precluded by sea ice since the Holocene. To forage effectively, baleen whales must target dense patches of zooplankton and small fishes. In the Pacific Arctic, bowhead and gray whales appear to be responding to enhanced prey availability delivered both by new production and advection pathways. Two programs, the Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) and the Synthesis of Arctic Research (SOAR), include tracking of marine mammal and prey species' responses to ecosystem shifts associated with sea ice loss. Both programs provide an integrated-ecosystem baseline in support of the development of a web-based Marine Mammal Health Map, envisioned as a component of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). An overarching goal is to identify ecological patterns for marine mammals in the 'new' Arctic, as a foundation for integrative research, local response and adaptive management.

Climate change and Southern Ocean ecosystems I: how changes in physical habitats directly affect marine biota.

PubMed

Constable, Andrew J; Melbourne-Thomas, Jessica; Corney, Stuart P; Arrigo, Kevin R; Barbraud, Christophe; Barnes, David K A; Bindoff, Nathaniel L; Boyd, Philip W; Brandt, Angelika; Costa, Daniel P; Davidson, Andrew T; Ducklow, Hugh W; Emmerson, Louise; Fukuchi, Mitsuo; Gutt, Julian; Hindell, Mark A; Hofmann, Eileen E; Hosie, Graham W; Iida, Takahiro; Jacob, Sarah; Johnston, Nadine M; Kawaguchi, So; Kokubun, Nobuo; Koubbi, Philippe; Lea, Mary-Anne; Makhado, Azwianewi; Massom, Rob A; Meiners, Klaus; Meredith, Michael P; Murphy, Eugene J; Nicol, Stephen; Reid, Keith; Richerson, Kate; Riddle, Martin J; Rintoul, Stephen R; Smith, Walker O; Southwell, Colin; Stark, Jonathon S; Sumner, Michael; Swadling, Kerrie M; Takahashi, Kunio T; Trathan, Phil N; Welsford, Dirk C; Weimerskirch, Henri; Westwood, Karen J; Wienecke, Barbara C; Wolf-Gladrow, Dieter; Wright, Simon W; Xavier, Jose C; Ziegler, Philippe

2014-10-01

Antarctic and Southern Ocean (ASO) marine ecosystems have been changing for at least the last 30 years, including in response to increasing ocean temperatures and changes in the extent and seasonality of sea ice; the magnitude and direction of these changes differ between regions around Antarctica that could see populations of the same species changing differently in different regions. This article reviews current and expected changes in ASO physical habitats in response to climate change. It then reviews how these changes may impact the autecology of marine biota of this polar region: microbes, zooplankton, salps, Antarctic krill, fish, cephalopods, marine mammals, seabirds, and benthos. The general prognosis for ASO marine habitats is for an overall warming and freshening, strengthening of westerly winds, with a potential pole-ward movement of those winds and the frontal systems, and an increase in ocean eddy activity. Many habitat parameters will have regionally specific changes, particularly relating to sea ice characteristics and seasonal dynamics. Lower trophic levels are expected to move south as the ocean conditions in which they are currently found move pole-ward. For Antarctic krill and finfish, the latitudinal breadth of their range will depend on their tolerance of warming oceans and changes to productivity. Ocean acidification is a concern not only for calcifying organisms but also for crustaceans such as Antarctic krill; it is also likely to be the most important change in benthic habitats over the coming century. For marine mammals and birds, the expected changes primarily relate to their flexibility in moving to alternative locations for food and the energetic cost of longer or more complex foraging trips for those that are bound to breeding colonies. Few species are sufficiently well studied to make comprehensive species-specific vulnerability assessments possible. Priorities for future work are discussed. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Climate change impacts on marine water quality: The case study of the Northern Adriatic sea.

PubMed

Rizzi, J; Torresan, S; Critto, A; Zabeo, A; Brigolin, D; Carniel, S; Pastres, R; Marcomini, A

2016-01-30

Climate change is posing additional pressures on coastal ecosystems due to variations in water biogeochemical and physico-chemical parameters (e.g., pH, salinity) leading to aquatic ecosystem degradation. With the main aim of analyzing the potential impacts of climate change on marine water quality, a Regional Risk Assessment methodology was developed and applied to coastal marine waters of the North Adriatic. It integrates the outputs of regional biogeochemical and physico-chemical models considering future climate change scenarios (i.e., years 2070 and 2100) with site-specific environmental and socio-economic indicators. Results showed that salinity and temperature will be the main drivers of changes, together with macronutrients, especially in the area of the Po' river delta. The final outputs are exposure, susceptibility and risk maps supporting the communication of the potential consequences of climate change on water quality to decision makers and stakeholders and provide a basis for the definition of adaptation and management strategies. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The impacts of climate change in coastal marine systems.

PubMed

Harley, Christopher D G; Randall Hughes, A; Hultgren, Kristin M; Miner, Benjamin G; Sorte, Cascade J B; Thornber, Carol S; Rodriguez, Laura F; Tomanek, Lars; Williams, Susan L

2006-02-01

Anthropogenically induced global climate change has profound implications for marine ecosystems and the economic and social systems that depend upon them. The relationship between temperature and individual performance is reasonably well understood, and much climate-related research has focused on potential shifts in distribution and abundance driven directly by temperature. However, recent work has revealed that both abiotic changes and biological responses in the ocean will be substantially more complex. For example, changes in ocean chemistry may be more important than changes in temperature for the performance and survival of many organisms. Ocean circulation, which drives larval transport, will also change, with important consequences for population dynamics. Furthermore, climatic impacts on one or a few 'leverage species' may result in sweeping community-level changes. Finally, synergistic effects between climate and other anthropogenic variables, particularly fishing pressure, will likely exacerbate climate-induced changes. Efforts to manage and conserve living marine systems in the face of climate change will require improvements to the existing predictive framework. Key directions for future research include identifying key demographic transitions that influence population dynamics, predicting changes in the community-level impacts of ecologically dominant species, incorporating populations' ability to evolve (adapt), and understanding the scales over which climate will change and living systems will respond.

Future Evolution of Marine Heat Waves in the Mediterranean: Coupled Regional Climate Projections

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Darmaraki, Sofia; Somot, Samuel; Sevault, Florence; Nabat, Pierre; Cavicchia, Leone; Djurdjevic, Vladimir; Cabos, William; Sein, Dmitry

2017-04-01

FUTURE EVOLUTION OF MARINE HEAT WAVES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN : COUPLED REGIONAL CLIMATE PROJECTIONS The Mediterranean area is identified as a « Hot Spot » region, vulnerable to future climate change with potentially strong impacts over the sea. By 2100, climate models predict increased warming over the sea surface, with possible implications on the Mediterranean thermohaline and surface circulation,associated also with severe impacts on the ecosystems (e.g. fish habitat loss, species extinction and migration, invasive species). However, a robust assesment of the future evolution of the extreme marine temperatures remains still an open issue of primary importance, under the anthropogenic pressure. In this context, we study here the probability and characteristics of marine heat wave (MHW) occurrence in the Mediterranean Sea in future climate projections. To this end, we use an ensemble of fully coupled regional climate system models (RCSM) from the Med- CORDEX initiative. This multi-model approach includes a high-resolution representation of the atmospheric, land and ocean component, with a free air-sea interface.Specifically, dedicated simulations for the 20th and the 21st century are carried out with respect to the different IPCC-AR5 socioeconomic scenarios (1950-2100, RCP8.5, RCP4.5, RCP2.6). Model evaluation for the historical period is performed using satellite and in situ data. Then, the variety of factors that can cause the MHW (e.g. direct radiative forcing, ocean advection, stratification change) are examined to disentangle the dominant driving force. Finally, the spatial variability and temporal evolution of MHW are analyzed on an annual basis, along with additional integrated indicators, useful for marine ecosystems.

Invertebrates, ecosystem services and climate change.

PubMed

Prather, Chelse M; Pelini, Shannon L; Laws, Angela; Rivest, Emily; Woltz, Megan; Bloch, Christopher P; Del Toro, Israel; Ho, Chuan-Kai; Kominoski, John; Newbold, T A Scott; Parsons, Sheena; Joern, A

2013-05-01

The sustainability of ecosystem services depends on a firm understanding of both how organisms provide these services to humans and how these organisms will be altered with a changing climate. Unquestionably a dominant feature of most ecosystems, invertebrates affect many ecosystem services and are also highly responsive to climate change. However, there is still a basic lack of understanding of the direct and indirect paths by which invertebrates influence ecosystem services, as well as how climate change will affect those ecosystem services by altering invertebrate populations. This indicates a lack of communication and collaboration among scientists researching ecosystem services and climate change effects on invertebrates, and land managers and researchers from other disciplines, which becomes obvious when systematically reviewing the literature relevant to invertebrates, ecosystem services, and climate change. To address this issue, we review how invertebrates respond to climate change. We then review how invertebrates both positively and negatively influence ecosystem services. Lastly, we provide some critical future directions for research needs, and suggest ways in which managers, scientists and other researchers may collaborate to tackle the complex issue of sustaining invertebrate-mediated services under a changing climate. © 2012 The Authors. Biological Reviews © 2012 Cambridge Philosophical Society.

[Effects of artificial reef construction to marine ecosystem services value: a case of Yang-Meikeng artificial reef region in Shenzhen].

PubMed

Qin, Chuan-xin; Chem, Pi-mao; Jia, Xiao-ping

2011-08-01

Based on the researches and statistic data of Yangmeikeng artificial reef region in Shenzhen in 2008 and by the method of ecosystem services value, this paper analyzed the effects of artificial reef construction in the region on the marine ecosystem services. After the artificial reef construction, the tourism service value in the region decreased from 87% to 42%, food supply service value increased from 7% to 27%, and the services value of raw material supply, climatic regulation, air quality regulation, water quality regulation, harmful organism and disease regulation, and knowledge expansion had a slight increase, as compared to the surrounding coastal areas. The total services value per unit area of Yangmeikeng artificial reef region in 2008 was 1714.7 x 10(4) yuan x km(-2), far higher than the mean services value of coastal marine ecosystem in the surrounding areas of Shenzhen and in the world. Artificial reef construction affected and altered the structure of regional marine ecosystem services value, and improved the regional ecosystem services value, being of significance for the rational exploitation and utilization of marine resources and the successful recovery of damaged marine eco-environment and fish resources. Utilizing the method of ecosystem services value to evaluate artificial reef construction region could better elucidate the benefits of artificial reef construction, effectively promote the development of our artificial reef construction, and improve the management of marine ecosystem.

Ecosystem-Based Management and the Sustainable Delivery of Marine Ecosystem Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fogarty, M.; Schwing, F. B.

2016-12-01

Ecosystem-Based Management can provide an essential framework for the sustainable delivery of a broad spectrum of marine Ecosystem Services (ES) essential to human well being. Key elements of the approach involve the specification of clearly articulated goals for EBM; the development of an accompanying Marine Ecosystem Services Assessment (MESA) designed to evaluate the status of delivery of these services; and strategies for the implementation of management options designed to achieve the stated goals of the program. The specification of goals is the purview of managers. In the United States under the provisions of the National Ocean Policy, Regional Planning Bodies are charged with the responsibility of articulating goals and developing strategies to meet these goals. Government agencies, in concert with the broader scientific community, hold the responsibility for assessing the status of the delivery of ecosystem services in relation to designated objectives and advising on appropriate management strategies. In this presentation, I will illustrate the specification of a MESA for the Northwest U.S Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (NES LME). The approach focuses on the evaluation of ES indicators and additional metrics related to threats and impacts to the sustainable delivery of these services. Results are combined into an overall index of status of the NES LME.

Not just about sunburn--the ozone hole's profound effect on climate has significant implications for Southern Hemisphere ecosystems.

PubMed

Robinson, Sharon A; Erickson, David J

2015-02-01

Climate scientists have concluded that stratospheric ozone depletion has been a major driver of Southern Hemisphere climate processes since about 1980. The implications of these observed and modelled changes in climate are likely to be far more pervasive for both terrestrial and marine ecosystems than the increase in ultraviolet-B radiation due to ozone depletion; however, they have been largely overlooked in the biological literature. Here, we synthesize the current understanding of how ozone depletion has impacted Southern Hemisphere climate and highlight the relatively few documented impacts on terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Reviewing the climate literature, we present examples of how ozone depletion changes atmospheric and oceanic circulation, with an emphasis on how these alterations in the physical climate system affect Southern Hemisphere weather, especially over the summer season (December-February). These potentially include increased incidence of extreme events, resulting in costly floods, drought, wildfires and serious environmental damage. The ecosystem impacts documented so far include changes to growth rates of South American and New Zealand trees, decreased growth of Antarctic mosses and changing biodiversity in Antarctic lakes. The objective of this synthesis was to stimulate the ecological community to look beyond ultraviolet-B radiation when considering the impacts of ozone depletion. Such widespread changes in Southern Hemisphere climate are likely to have had as much or more impact on natural ecosystems and food production over the past few decades, than the increased ultraviolet radiation due to ozone depletion. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Climate change-contaminant interactions in marine food webs: Toward a conceptual framework.

PubMed

Alava, Juan José; Cheung, William W L; Ross, Peter S; Sumaila, U Rashid

2017-10-01

Climate change is reshaping the way in which contaminants move through the global environment, in large part by changing the chemistry of the oceans and affecting the physiology, health, and feeding ecology of marine biota. Climate change-associated impacts on structure and function of marine food webs, with consequent changes in contaminant transport, fate, and effects, are likely to have significant repercussions to those human populations that rely on fisheries resources for food, recreation, or culture. Published studies on climate change-contaminant interactions with a focus on food web bioaccumulation were systematically reviewed to explore how climate change and ocean acidification may impact contaminant levels in marine food webs. We propose here a conceptual framework to illustrate the impacts of climate change on contaminant accumulation in marine food webs, as well as the downstream consequences for ecosystem goods and services. The potential impacts on social and economic security for coastal communities that depend on fisheries for food are discussed. Climate change-contaminant interactions may alter the bioaccumulation of two priority contaminant classes: the fat-soluble persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), as well as the protein-binding methylmercury (MeHg). These interactions include phenomena deemed to be either climate change dominant (i.e., climate change leads to an increase in contaminant exposure) or contaminant dominant (i.e., contamination leads to an increase in climate change susceptibility). We illustrate the pathways of climate change-contaminant interactions using case studies in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean. The important role of ecological and food web modeling to inform decision-making in managing ecological and human health risks of chemical pollutants contamination under climate change is also highlighted. Finally, we identify the need to develop integrated policies that manage the

Coralline alga reveals first marine record of subarctic North Pacific climate change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Halfar, J.; Steneck, R.; Schone, B.; Moore, G.W.K.; Joachimski, M.; Kronz, A.; Fietzke, J.; Estes, James A.

2007-01-01

While recent changes in subarctic North Pacific climate had dramatic effects on ecosystems and fishery yields, past climate dynamics and teleconnection patterns are poorly understood due to the absence of century-long high-resolution marine records. We present the first 117-year long annually resolved marine climate history from the western Bering Sea/Aleutian Island region using information contained in the calcitic skeleton of the long-lived crustose coralline red alga Clathromorphum nereostratum, a previously unused climate archive. The skeletal ??18O-time series indicates significant warming and/or freshening of surface waters after the middle of the 20th century. Furthermore, the time series is spatiotemporally correlated with Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and tropical El Nio??-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices. Even though the western Bering Sea/Aleutian Island region is believed to be outside the area of significant marine response to ENSO, we propose that an ENSO signal is transmitted via the Alaskan Stream from the Eastern North Pacific, a region of known ENSO teleconnections. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.

Towards end-to-end models for investigating the effects of climate and fishing in marine ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Travers, M.; Shin, Y.-J.; Jennings, S.; Cury, P.

2007-12-01

End-to-end models that represent ecosystem components from primary producers to top predators, linked through trophic interactions and affected by the abiotic environment, are expected to provide valuable tools for assessing the effects of climate change and fishing on ecosystem dynamics. Here, we review the main process-based approaches used for marine ecosystem modelling, focusing on the extent of the food web modelled, the forcing factors considered, the trophic processes represented, as well as the potential use and further development of the models. We consider models of a subset of the food web, models which represent the first attempts to couple low and high trophic levels, integrated models of the whole ecosystem, and size spectrum models. Comparisons within and among these groups of models highlight the preferential use of functional groups at low trophic levels and species at higher trophic levels and the different ways in which the models account for abiotic processes. The model comparisons also highlight the importance of choosing an appropriate spatial dimension for representing organism dynamics. Many of the reviewed models could be extended by adding components and by ensuring that the full life cycles of species components are represented, but end-to-end models should provide full coverage of ecosystem components, the integration of physical and biological processes at different scales and two-way interactions between ecosystem components. We suggest that this is best achieved by coupling models, but there are very few existing cases where the coupling supports true two-way interaction. The advantages of coupling models are that the extent of discretization and representation can be targeted to the part of the food web being considered, making their development time- and cost-effective. Processes such as predation can be coupled to allow the propagation of forcing factors effects up and down the food web. However, there needs to be a stronger focus

The Dependencies of Ecosystem Pattern, Structure, and Dynamics on Climate, Climate Variability, and Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Flanagan, S.; Hurtt, G. C.; Fisk, J. P.; Rourke, O.

2012-12-01

A robust understanding of the sensitivity of the pattern, structure, and dynamics of ecosystems to climate, climate variability, and climate change is needed to predict ecosystem responses to current and projected climate change. We present results of a study designed to first quantify the sensitivity of ecosystems to climate through the use of climate and ecosystem data, and then use the results to test the sensitivity of the climate data in a state-of the art ecosystem model. A database of available ecosystem characteristics such as mean canopy height, above ground biomass, and basal area was constructed from sources like the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset (NBCD). The ecosystem characteristics were then paired by latitude and longitude with the corresponding climate characteristics temperature, precipitation, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and dew point that were retrieved from the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR). The average yearly and seasonal means of the climate data, and their associated maximum and minimum values, over the 1979-2010 time frame provided by NARR were constructed and paired with the ecosystem data. The compiled results provide natural patterns of vegetation structure and distribution with regard to climate data. An advanced ecosystem model, the Ecosystem Demography model (ED), was then modified to allow yearly alterations to its mechanistic climate lookup table and used to predict the sensitivities of ecosystem pattern, structure, and dynamics to climate data. The combined ecosystem structure and climate data results were compared to ED's output to check the validity of the model. After verification, climate change scenarios such as those used in the last IPCC were run and future forest structure changes due to climate sensitivities were identified. The results of this study can be used to both quantify and test key relationships for next generation models. The sensitivity of ecosystem characteristics to climate data

The importance of within-system spatial variation in drivers of marine ecosystem regime shifts

PubMed Central

Fisher, J. A. D.; Casini, M.; Frank, K. T.; Möllmann, C.; Leggett, W. C.; Daskalov, G.

2015-01-01

Comparative analyses of the dynamics of exploited marine ecosystems have led to differing hypotheses regarding the primary causes of observed regime shifts, while many ecosystems have apparently not undergone regime shifts. These varied responses may be partly explained by the decade-old recognition that within-system spatial heterogeneity in key climate and anthropogenic drivers may be important, as recent theoretical examinations have concluded that spatial heterogeneity in environmental characteristics may diminish the tendency for regime shifts. Here, we synthesize recent, empirical within-system spatio-temporal analyses of some temperate and subarctic large marine ecosystems in which regime shifts have (and have not) occurred. Examples from the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Bengula Current, North Sea, Barents Sea and Eastern Scotian Shelf reveal the largely neglected importance of considering spatial variability in key biotic and abiotic influences and species movements in the context of evaluating and predicting regime shifts. We highlight both the importance of understanding the scale-dependent spatial dynamics of climate influences and key predator–prey interactions to unravel the dynamics of regime shifts, and the utility of spatial downscaling of proposed mechanisms (as evident in the North Sea and Barents Sea) as a means of evaluating hypotheses originally derived from among-system comparisons.

Climate Variability and Ecosystem Response

Treesearch

David Greenland; Lloyd W. Swift; [Editors

1990-01-01

Nine papers describe studies of climate variability and ecosystem response. The studies were conducted at LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) sites representing forest, agricultural, and aquatic ecosystems and systems in which extreme climates limit vegetational cover. An overview paper prepared by the LTER Climate Committee stresses the importance of (1) clear...

Climate and ecosystem linkages explain widespread declines in North American Atlantic salmon populations.

PubMed

Mills, Katherine E; Pershing, Andrew J; Sheehan, Timothy F; Mountain, David

2013-10-01

North American Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations experienced substantial declines in the early 1990s, and many populations have persisted at low abundances in recent years. Abundance and productivity declined in a coherent manner across major regions of North America, and this coherence points toward a potential shift in marine survivorship, rather than local, river-specific factors. The major declines in Atlantic salmon populations occurred against a backdrop of physical and biological shifts in Northwest Atlantic ecosystems. Analyses of changes in climate, physical, and lower trophic level biological factors provide substantial evidence that climate conditions directly and indirectly influence the abundance and productivity of North American Atlantic salmon populations. A major decline in salmon abundance after 1990 was preceded by a series of changes across multiple levels of the ecosystem, and a subsequent population change in 1997, primarily related to salmon productivity, followed an unusually low NAO event. Pairwise correlations further demonstrate that climate and physical conditions are associated with changes in plankton communities and prey availability, which are ultimately linked to Atlantic salmon populations. Results suggest that poor trophic conditions, likely due to climate-driven environmental factors, and warmer ocean temperatures throughout their marine habitat area are constraining the productivity and recovery of North American Atlantic salmon populations. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Comparing marine and terrestrial ecosystems: Implications for the design of coastal marine reserves

USGS Publications Warehouse

Carr, M.H.; Neigel, J.E.; Estes, J.A.; Andelman, S.; Warner, R.R.; Largier, J. L.

2003-01-01

Concepts and theory for the design and application of terrestrial reserves is based on our understanding of environmental, ecological, and evolutionary processes responsible for biological diversity and sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems and how humans have influenced these processes. How well this terrestrial-based theory can be applied toward the design and application of reserves in the coastal marine environment depends, in part, on the degree of similarity between these systems. Several marked differences in ecological and evolutionary processes exist between marine and terrestrial ecosystems as ramifications of fundamental differences in their physical environments (i.e., the relative prevalence of air and water) and contemporary patterns of human impacts. Most notably, the great extent and rate of dispersal of nutrients, materials, holoplanktonic organisms, and reproductive propagules of benthic organisms expand scales of connectivity among near-shore communities and ecosystems. Consequently, the "openness" of marine populations, communities, and ecosystems probably has marked influences on their spatial, genetic, and trophic structures and dynamics in ways experienced by only some terrestrial species. Such differences appear to be particularly significant for the kinds of organisms most exploited and targeted for protection in coastal marine ecosystems (fishes and macroinvertebrates). These and other differences imply some unique design criteria and application of reserves in the marine environment. In explaining the implications of these differences for marine reserve design and application, we identify many of the environmental and ecological processes and design criteria necessary for consideration in the development of the analytical approaches developed elsewhere in this Special Issue.

Climate change, marine environments, and the US Endangered species act.

PubMed

Seney, Erin E; Rowland, Melanie J; Lowery, Ruth Ann; Griffis, Roger B; McClure, Michelle M

2013-12-01

Climate change is expected to be a top driver of global biodiversity loss in the 21st century. It poses new challenges to conserving and managing imperiled species, particularly in marine and estuarine ecosystems. The use of climate-related science in statutorily driven species management, such as under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), is in its early stages. This article provides an overview of ESA processes, with emphasis on the mandate to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to manage listed marine, estuarine, and anadromous species. Although the ESA is specific to the United States, its requirements are broadly relevant to conservation planning. Under the ESA, species, subspecies, and "distinct population segments" may be listed as either endangered or threatened, and taking of most listed species (harassing, harming, pursuing, wounding, killing, or capturing) is prohibited unless specifically authorized via a case-by-case permit process. Government agencies, in addition to avoiding take, must ensure that actions they fund, authorize, or conduct are not likely to jeopardize a listed species' continued existence or adversely affect designated critical habitat. Decisions for which climate change is likely to be a key factor include: determining whether a species should be listed under the ESA, designating critical habitat areas, developing species recovery plans, and predicting whether effects of proposed human activities will be compatible with ESA-listed species' survival and recovery. Scientific analyses that underlie these critical conservation decisions include risk assessment, long-term recovery planning, defining environmental baselines, predicting distribution, and defining appropriate temporal and spatial scales. Although specific guidance is still evolving, it is clear that the unprecedented changes in global ecosystems brought about by climate change necessitate new information and approaches to conservation of imperiled species. El

Impacts of climate change on biodiversity, ecosystems, and ecosystem services: technical input to the 2013 National Climate Assessment

USGS Publications Warehouse

Staudinger, Michelle D.; Grimm, Nancy B.; Staudt, Amanda; Carter, Shawn L.; Stuart, F. Stuart; Kareiva, Peter; Ruckelshaus, Mary; Stein, Bruce A.

2012-01-01

Ecosystems, and the biodiversity and services they support, are intrinsically dependent on climate. During the twentieth century, climate change has had documented impacts on ecological systems, and impacts are expected to increase as climate change continues and perhaps even accelerates. This technical input to the National Climate Assessment synthesizes our scientific understanding of the way climate change is affecting biodiversity, ecosystems, ecosystem services, and what strategies might be employed to decrease current and future risks. Building on past assessments of how climate change and other stressors are affecting ecosystems in the United States and around the world, we approach the subject from several different perspectives. First, we review the observed and projected impacts on biodiversity, with a focus on genes, species, and assemblages of species. Next, we examine how climate change is affecting ecosystem structural elements—such as biomass, architecture, and heterogeneity—and functions—specifically, as related to the fluxes of energy and matter. People experience climate change impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems as changes in ecosystem services; people depend on ecosystems for resources that are harvested, their role in regulating the movement of materials and disturbances, and their recreational, cultural, and aesthetic value. Thus, we review newly emerging research to determine how human activities and a changing climate are likely to alter the delivery of these ecosystem services. This technical input also examines two cross-cutting topics. First, we recognize that climate change is happening against the backdrop of a wide range of other environmental and anthropogenic stressors, many of which have caused dramatic ecosystem degradation already. This broader range of stressors interacts with climate change, and complicates our abilities to predict and manage the impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, and the services they support. The

Large-scale climatic anomalies affect marine predator foraging behaviour and demography.

PubMed

Bost, Charles A; Cotté, Cedric; Terray, Pascal; Barbraud, Christophe; Bon, Cécile; Delord, Karine; Gimenez, Olivier; Handrich, Yves; Naito, Yasuhiko; Guinet, Christophe; Weimerskirch, Henri

2015-10-27

Determining the links between the behavioural and population responses of wild species to environmental variations is critical for understanding the impact of climate variability on ecosystems. Using long-term data sets, we show how large-scale climatic anomalies in the Southern Hemisphere affect the foraging behaviour and population dynamics of a key marine predator, the king penguin. When large-scale subtropical dipole events occur simultaneously in both subtropical Southern Indian and Atlantic Oceans, they generate tropical anomalies that shift the foraging zone southward. Consequently the distances that penguins foraged from the colony and their feeding depths increased and the population size decreased. This represents an example of a robust and fast impact of large-scale climatic anomalies affecting a marine predator through changes in its at-sea behaviour and demography, despite lack of information on prey availability. Our results highlight a possible behavioural mechanism through which climate variability may affect population processes.

Large-scale climatic anomalies affect marine predator foraging behaviour and demography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bost, Charles A.; Cotté, Cedric; Terray, Pascal; Barbraud, Christophe; Bon, Cécile; Delord, Karine; Gimenez, Olivier; Handrich, Yves; Naito, Yasuhiko; Guinet, Christophe; Weimerskirch, Henri

2015-10-01

Determining the links between the behavioural and population responses of wild species to environmental variations is critical for understanding the impact of climate variability on ecosystems. Using long-term data sets, we show how large-scale climatic anomalies in the Southern Hemisphere affect the foraging behaviour and population dynamics of a key marine predator, the king penguin. When large-scale subtropical dipole events occur simultaneously in both subtropical Southern Indian and Atlantic Oceans, they generate tropical anomalies that shift the foraging zone southward. Consequently the distances that penguins foraged from the colony and their feeding depths increased and the population size decreased. This represents an example of a robust and fast impact of large-scale climatic anomalies affecting a marine predator through changes in its at-sea behaviour and demography, despite lack of information on prey availability. Our results highlight a possible behavioural mechanism through which climate variability may affect population processes.

Impacts of fishing low-trophic level species on marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Smith, Anthony D M; Brown, Christopher J; Bulman, Catherine M; Fulton, Elizabeth A; Johnson, Penny; Kaplan, Isaac C; Lozano-Montes, Hector; Mackinson, Steven; Marzloff, Martin; Shannon, Lynne J; Shin, Yunne-Jai; Tam, Jorge

2011-08-26

Low-trophic level species account for more than 30% of global fisheries production and contribute substantially to global food security. We used a range of ecosystem models to explore the effects of fishing low-trophic level species on marine ecosystems, including marine mammals and seabirds, and on other commercially important species. In five well-studied ecosystems, we found that fishing these species at conventional maximum sustainable yield (MSY) levels can have large impacts on other parts of the ecosystem, particularly when they constitute a high proportion of the biomass in the ecosystem or are highly connected in the food web. Halving exploitation rates would result in much lower impacts on marine ecosystems while still achieving 80% of MSY.

Physiological-based modelling of marine fish early life stages provides process knowledge on climate impacts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peck, M. A.

2016-02-01

Gaining a cause-and-effect understanding of climate-driven changes in marine fish populations at appropriate spatial scales is important for providing robust advice for ecosystem-based fisheries management. Coupling long-term, retrospective analyses and 3-d biophysical, individual-based models (IBMs) shows great potential to reveal mechanism underlying historical changes and to project future changes in marine fishes. IBMs created for marine fish early life stages integrate organismal-level physiological responses and climate-driven changes in marine habitats (from ocean physics to lower trophic level productivity) to test and reveal processes affecting marine fish recruitment. Case studies are provided for hindcasts and future (A1 and B2 projection) simulations performed on some of the most ecologically- and commercially-important pelagic and demersal fishes in the North Sea including European anchovy, Atlantic herring, European sprat and Atlantic cod. We discuss the utility of coupling biophysical IBMs to size-spectrum models to better project indirect (trophodynamic) pathways of climate influence on the early life stages of these and other fishes. Opportunities and challenges are discussed regarding the ability of these physiological-based tools to capture climate-driven changes in living marine resources and food web dynamics of shelf seas.

Ecosystem productivity is associated with bacterial phylogenetic distance in surface marine waters.

PubMed

Galand, Pierre E; Salter, Ian; Kalenitchenko, Dimitri

2015-12-01

Understanding the link between community diversity and ecosystem function is a fundamental aspect of ecology. Systematic losses in biodiversity are widely acknowledged but the impact this may exert on ecosystem functioning remains ambiguous. There is growing evidence of a positive relationship between species richness and ecosystem productivity for terrestrial macro-organisms, but similar links for marine micro-organisms, which help drive global climate, are unclear. Community manipulation experiments show both positive and negative relationships for microbes. These previous studies rely, however, on artificial communities and any links between the full diversity of active bacterial communities in the environment, their phylogenetic relatedness and ecosystem function remain hitherto unexplored. Here, we test the hypothesis that productivity is associated with diversity in the metabolically active fraction of microbial communities. We show in natural assemblages of active bacteria that communities containing more distantly related members were associated with higher bacterial production. The positive phylogenetic diversity-productivity relationship was independent of community diversity calculated as the Shannon index. From our long-term (7-year) survey of surface marine bacterial communities, we also found that similarly, productive communities had greater phylogenetic similarity to each other, further suggesting that the traits of active bacteria are an important predictor of ecosystem productivity. Our findings demonstrate that the evolutionary history of the active fraction of a microbial community is critical for understanding their role in ecosystem functioning. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Information Needs Assessment for Coastal and Marine Management and Policy: Ecosystem Services Under Changing Climatic, Land Use, and Demographic Conditions.

PubMed

Goldsmith, Kaitlin A; Granek, Elise F; Lubitow, Amy

2015-12-01

Changing climatic, demographic, and land use conditions are projected to alter the provisioning of ecosystem services in estuarine, coastal, and nearshore marine ecosystems, necessitating mitigation and adaptation policies and management. The current paradigm of research efforts occurring in parallel to, rather than in collaboration with, decision makers will be insufficient for the rapid responses required to adapt to and mitigate for projected changing conditions. Here, we suggest a different paradigm: one where research begins by engaging decision makers in the identification of priority data needs (biophysical, economic, and social). This paper uses synthesized interview data to provide insight into the varied demands for scientific research as described by decision makers working on coastal issues in Oregon, USA. The findings highlight the need to recognize (1) the differing framing of ecosystem services by decision makers versus scientists; and (2) the differing data priorities relevant to inland versus coastal decision makers. The findings further serve to highlight the need for decision makers, scientists, and funders to engage in increased communication. This research is an important first step in advancing efforts toward evidence-based decision making in Oregon and provides a template for further research across the US.

Global change and marine communities: alien species and climate change.

PubMed

Occhipinti-Ambrogi, Anna

2007-01-01

Anthropogenic influences on the biosphere since the advent of the industrial age are increasingly causing global changes. Climatic change and the rising concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are ranking high in scientific and public agendas, and other components of global change are also frequently addressed, among which are the introductions of non indigenous species (NIS) in biogeographic regions well separated from the donor region, often followed by spectacular invasions. In the marine environment, both climatic change and spread of alien species have been studied extensively; this review is aimed at examining the main responses of ecosystems to climatic change, taking into account the increasing importance of biological invasions. Some general principles on NIS introductions in the marine environment are recalled, such as the importance of propagule pressure and of development stages during the time course of an invasion. Climatic change is known to affect many ecological properties; it interacts also with NIS in many possible ways. Direct (proximate) effects on individuals and populations of altered physical-chemical conditions are distinguished from indirect effects on emergent properties (species distribution, diversity, and production). Climatically driven changes may affect both local dispersal mechanisms, due to the alteration of current patterns, and competitive interactions between NIS and native species, due to the onset of new thermal optima and/or different carbonate chemistry. As well as latitudinal range expansions of species correlated with changing temperature conditions, and effects on species richness and the correlated extinction of native species, some invasions may provoke multiple effects which involve overall ecosystem functioning (material flow between trophic groups, primary production, relative extent of organic material decomposition, extent of benthic-pelagic coupling). Some examples are given, including a special

Species richness accelerates marine ecosystem restoration in the Coral Triangle.

PubMed

Williams, Susan L; Ambo-Rappe, Rohani; Sur, Christine; Abbott, Jessica M; Limbong, Steven R

2017-11-07

Ecosystem restoration aims to restore biodiversity and valuable functions that have been degraded or lost. The Coral Triangle is a hotspot for marine biodiversity held in its coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and mangrove forests, all of which are in global decline. These coastal ecosystems support valuable fisheries and endangered species, protect shorelines, and are significant carbon stores, functions that have been degraded by coastal development, destructive fishing practices, and climate change. Ecosystem restoration is required to mitigate these damages and losses, but its practice is in its infancy in the region. Here we demonstrate that species diversity can set the trajectory of restoration. In a seagrass restoration experiment in the heart of the Coral Triangle (Sulawesi, Indonesia), plant survival and coverage increased with the number of species transplanted. Our results highlight the positive role biodiversity can play in ecosystem restoration and call for revision of the common restoration practice of establishing a single target species, particularly in regions having high biodiversity. Coastal ecosystems affect human well-being in many important ways, and restoration will become ever more important as conservation efforts cannot keep up with their loss. Published under the PNAS license.

Transnational corporations as 'keystone actors' in marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Österblom, Henrik; Jouffray, Jean-Baptiste; Folke, Carl; Crona, Beatrice; Troell, Max; Merrie, Andrew; Rockström, Johan

2015-01-01

Keystone species have a disproportionate influence on the structure and function of ecosystems. Here we analyze whether a keystone-like pattern can be observed in the relationship between transnational corporations and marine ecosystems globally. We show how thirteen corporations control 11-16% of the global marine catch (9-13 million tons) and 19-40% of the largest and most valuable stocks, including species that play important roles in their respective ecosystem. They dominate all segments of seafood production, operate through an extensive global network of subsidiaries and are profoundly involved in fisheries and aquaculture decision-making. Based on our findings, we define these companies as keystone actors of the Anthropocene. The phenomenon of keystone actors represents an increasingly important feature of the human-dominated world. Sustainable leadership by keystone actors could result in cascading effects throughout the entire seafood industry and enable a critical transition towards improved management of marine living resources and ecosystems.

From global to regional and back again: common climate stressors of marine ecosystems relevant for adaptation across five ocean warming hotspots.

PubMed

Popova, Ekaterina; Yool, Andrew; Byfield, Valborg; Cochrane, Kevern; Coward, Andrew C; Salim, Shyam S; Gasalla, Maria A; Henson, Stephanie A; Hobday, Alistair J; Pecl, Gretta T; Sauer, Warwick H; Roberts, Michael J

2016-06-01

climate change impacting marine ecosystems in these areas. © 2016 The Authors. Global Change Biology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Typology and indicators of ecosystem services for marine spatial planning and management.

PubMed

Böhnke-Henrichs, Anne; Baulcomb, Corinne; Koss, Rebecca; Hussain, S Salman; de Groot, Rudolf S

2013-11-30

The ecosystem services concept provides both an analytical and communicative tool to identify and quantify the link between human welfare and the environment, and thus to evaluate the ramifications of management interventions. Marine spatial planning (MSP) and Ecosystem-based Management (EBM) are a form of management intervention that has become increasingly popular and important globally. The ecosystem service concept is rarely applied in marine planning and management to date which we argue is due to the lack of a well-structured, systematic classification and assessment of marine ecosystem services. In this paper we not only develop such a typology but also provide guidance to select appropriate indicators for all relevant ecosystem services. We apply this marine-specific ecosystem service typology to MSP and EBM. We thus provide not only a novel theoretical construct but also show how the ecosystem services concept can be used in marine planning and management. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ecotoxicology of tropical marine ecosystems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Peters, E.C.; Gassman, N.J.; Firman, J.C.

1997-01-01

The negative effects of chemical contaminants on tropical marine ecosystems are of increasing concern as human populations expand adjacent to these communities. Watershed streams and ground water carry a variety of chemicals from agricultural, industrial, and domestic activities, while winds and currents transport pollutants from atmospheric and oceanic sources to these coastal ecosystems. The implications of the limited information available on impacts of chemical stressors on mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, and coral reefs are discussed in the context of ecosystem management and ecological risk assessment. Three classes of pollutants have received attention: heavy metals, petroleum, and synthetic organics. Heavy metalsmore » have been detected in all three ecosystems, causing physiological stress, reduced reproductive success, and outright mortality in associated invertebrates and fishes. Oil spills have been responsible for the destruction of entire coastal shallow-water communities, with recovery requiring years. Herbicides are particularly detrimental to mangroves and seagrasses and adversely affect the animal-algal symbioses in corals. Pesticides interfere with chemical cues responsible for key biological processes, including reproduction and recruitment of a variety of organisms. Information is lacking with regard to long-term recovery, indicator species, and biomarkers for tropical communities. Critical areas that are beginning to be addressed include the development of appropriate benchmarks for risk assessment, baseline monitoring criteria, and effective management strategies to protect tropical marine ecosystems in the face of mounting anthropogenic disturbance.« less

Combined terrestrial and marine biomarker records from an Icelandic fjord: insights into Holocene climate drivers and marine/ terrestrial responses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moossen, H. M.; Seki, O.; Quillmann, U.; Andrews, J. T.; Bendle, J. A.

2012-12-01

Holocene climate change has affected human cultures throughout at least the last 4000 years (D'Andrea et al., 2011). Today, studying Holocene climate variability is important, both to constrain the influence of climate change on ancient cultures and to place contemporary climate change in a historic context. Organic geochemical biomarkers are an ideal tool to study how climatic changes have affected terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as a host of different biomarker based climate proxies have emerged over recent years. Applying the available biomarker proxies on sediment cores from fjordic environments facilitates the study of how climate has affected terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and how these ecosystems have interacted. Ìsafjardardjúp fjord in Northwest Iceland is an ideal location to study North Atlantic Holocene climate change because the area is very sensitive to changes in the oceanic and atmospheric current systems (Hurrell, 1995; Quillmann et al., 2010). In this study we present high resolution (1 sample/30 calibrated years) terrestrial and marine biomarker records from a 38 m sediment core from Ìsafjardardjúp fjord covering the Holocene. We reconstruct sea surface temperature variations using the alkenone derived UK'37 proxy. Air temperature changes are reconstructed using the GDGT derived MBT/CBT palaeothermometer. We use the average chain length (ACL) variability of n-alkanes derived from terrestrial higher plant leaf waxes to reconstruct changing precipitation regimes. The relationship between ACL and precipitation is confirmed by comparing it with the δD signature of the C29 n-alkane and soil pH changes inferred by the CBT proxy. The combined sea surface and air temperature and precipitation records indicate that different climate changing drivers were dominant at different stages of the Holocene. Sea surface temperatures were strongly influenced by the melting of the remaining glaciers from the last glacial maximum throughout the early

How Do Marine Pelagic Species Respond to Climate Change? Theories and Observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beaugrand, Grégory; Kirby, Richard R.

2018-01-01

In this review, we show how climate affects species, communities, and ecosystems, and why many responses from the species to the biome level originate from the interaction between the species’ ecological niche and changes in the environmental regime in both space and time. We describe a theory that allows us to understand and predict how marine species react to climate-induced changes in ecological conditions, how communities form and are reconfigured, and so how biodiversity is arranged and may respond to climate change. Our study shows that the responses of species to climate change are therefore intelligible—that is, they have a strong deterministic component and can be predicted.

Major threats of pollution and climate change to global coastal ecosystems and enhanced management for sustainability.

PubMed

Lu, Yonglong; Yuan, Jingjing; Lu, Xiaotian; Su, Chao; Zhang, Yueqing; Wang, Chenchen; Cao, Xianghui; Li, Qifeng; Su, Jilan; Ittekkot, Venugopalan; Garbutt, Richard Angus; Bush, Simon; Fletcher, Stephen; Wagey, Tonny; Kachur, Anatolii; Sweijd, Neville

2018-08-01

Coastal zone is of great importance in the provision of various valuable ecosystem services. However, it is also sensitive and vulnerable to environmental changes due to high human populations and interactions between the land and ocean. Major threats of pollution from over enrichment of nutrients, increasing metals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and climate change have led to severe ecological degradation in the coastal zone, while few studies have focused on the combined impacts of pollution and climate change on the coastal ecosystems at the global level. A global overview of nutrients, metals, POPs, and major environmental changes due to climate change and their impacts on coastal ecosystems was carried out in this study. Coasts of the Eastern Atlantic and Western Pacific were hotspots of concentrations of several pollutants, and mostly affected by warming climate. These hotspots shared the same features of large populations, heavy industry and (semi-) closed sea. Estimation of coastal ocean capital, integrated management of land-ocean interaction in the coastal zone, enhancement of integrated global observation system, and coastal ecosystem-based management can play effective roles in promoting sustainable management of coastal marine ecosystems. Enhanced management from the perspective of mitigating pollution and climate change was proposed. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Climate Action Benefits: Ecosystems

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

This page provides background on the relationship between ecosystems and climate change and describes what the CIRA Ecosystems analyses cover. It provides links to the subsectors Coral Reefs, Shellfish, Freshwater Fish, Wildfire, and Carbon Storage.

Comparative analysis of European wide marine ecosystem shifts: a large-scale approach for developing the basis for ecosystem-based management.

PubMed

Möllmann, Christian; Conversi, Alessandra; Edwards, Martin

2011-08-23

Abrupt and rapid ecosystem shifts (where major reorganizations of food-web and community structures occur), commonly termed regime shifts, are changes between contrasting and persisting states of ecosystem structure and function. These shifts have been increasingly reported for exploited marine ecosystems around the world from the North Pacific to the North Atlantic. Understanding the drivers and mechanisms leading to marine ecosystem shifts is crucial in developing adaptive management strategies to achieve sustainable exploitation of marine ecosystems. An international workshop on a comparative approach to analysing these marine ecosystem shifts was held at Hamburg University, Institute for Hydrobiology and Fisheries Science, Germany on 1-3 November 2010. Twenty-seven scientists from 14 countries attended the meeting, representing specialists from seven marine regions, including the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Barents Sea, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Bay of Biscay and the Scotian Shelf off the Canadian East coast. The goal of the workshop was to conduct the first large-scale comparison of marine ecosystem regime shifts across multiple regional areas, in order to support the development of ecosystem-based management strategies. This journal is © 2011 The Royal Society

Thirty year ecosystem trajectories in a submerged marine cave under changing pressure regime.

PubMed

Montefalcone, Monica; De Falco, Giada; Nepote, Ettore; Canessa, Martina; Bertolino, Marco; Bavestrello, Giorgio; Morri, Carla; Bianchi, Carlo Nike

2018-06-01

Marine caves are unique and vulnerable habitats exhibiting high biodiversity and heterogeneity, but threatened by multiple global and local disturbances. Marine caves, although widely distributed along the Mediterranean coast, suffer for the lack of quantitative data on their structure and function, which hinder their conservation status assessment. Thanks to the availability of a nearly 30-year-long series of data (1986-2013), we evaluated ecosystem change in the Bergeggi marine cave (Ligurian Sea, NW Mediterranean), a cave with a complex shape and high habitat heterogeneity. Non-taxonomic descriptors were adopted, namely growth forms (GF) and trophic guilds (TG), which are informative about ecosystem structure and functioning, respectively. The cave experienced a general trend of change during the last three decades, mainly due to the decline in the cover of sessile organisms (especially 3-dimensional forms) matched by an increase of turf and sediment, thus causing the structural and functional homogenization of the cave community. While change before 2004 had been attributed to climatic factors (especially to the summer heat waves of 1999 and 2003), the most important rate of change was observed between 2009 and 2013, coinciding with recent major beach nourishments and the extension of the neighbouring Vado Ligure harbour, thus providing evidences on the importance of local disturbances deriving from coastal interventions. Monitoring the status of cave ecosystems is urgently needed, and the use of effective indicators, such as the specific traits here adopted (morphology and feeding strategy), could provide effective tools to assist marine cave conservation. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mangrove ecosystems under climate change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Jennerjahn, T.C.; Gilman, E.; Krauss, Ken W.; Lacerda, L.D.; Nordhaus, I.; Wolanski, E.

2017-01-01

This chapter assesses the response of mangrove ecosystems to possible outcomes of climate change, with regard to the following categories: (i) distribution, diversity, and community composition, (ii) physiology of flora and fauna, (iii) water budget, (iv) productivity and remineralization, (v) carbon storage in biomass and sediments, and (vi) the filter function for elements beneficial or harmful to life. These categories are then used to identify the regions most vulnerable to climate change. The four most important factors determining the response of mangrove ecosystems to climate change are sea level rise, an increase in frequency and/or intensity of storms, increases in temperature, and aridity. While these changes may be beneficial for some mangrove forests at latitudinal distribution limits, they will threaten forest structure and functions and related ecosystem services in most cases. The interaction of climate change with human interventions is discussed, as well as the effects on ecosystem services including possible adaptation and management options. The chapter closes with an outlook on knowledge gaps and priority research needed to fill these gaps.

Marine Chemical Ecology: Chemical Signals and Cues Structure Marine Populations, Communities, and Ecosystems

PubMed Central

Hay, Mark E.

2012-01-01

Chemical cues constitute much of the language of life in the sea. Our understanding of biotic interactions and their effects on marine ecosystems will advance more rapidly if this language is studied and understood. Here, I review how chemical cues regulate critical aspects of the behavior of marine organisms from bacteria to phytoplankton to benthic invertebrates and water column fishes. These chemically mediated interactions strongly affect population structure, community organization, and ecosystem function. Chemical cues determine foraging strategies, feeding choices, commensal associations, selection of mates and habitats, competitive interactions, and transfer of energy and nutrients within and among ecosystems. In numerous cases, the indirect effects of chemical signals on behavior have as much or more effect on community structure and function as the direct effects of consumers and pathogens. Chemical cues are critical for understanding marine systems, but their omnipresence and impact are inadequately recognized. PMID:21141035

Crab regulation of cross-ecosystem resource transfer by marine foraging fire ants.

PubMed

Garcia, Erica A; Bertness, Mark D; Alberti, Juan; Silliman, Brian R

2011-08-01

Permeability of boundaries in biological systems is regulated by biotic and/or abiotic factors. Despite this knowledge, the role of biotic factors in regulating resource transfer across ecosystem boundaries has received little study. Additionally, little is known about how cross-ecosystem resource transfer affects source populations. We used experiments, observations and stable isotopes, to evaluate: (1) the proportion of intertidal-foraging black fire ant (Solenopsis richteri) diet derived from marine sources, (2) how black fire ant cross-ecosystem resource transfer is altered by the dominant bioengineer in the intertidal, a burrowing crab (Neohelice granulata), (3) the top-down impact of these terrestrial ants on a marine resource, and (4) the effect of marine resources on recipient black fire ants. We found that more than 85% of the black fire ant diet is derived from marine sources, the number of intertidal foraging ants doubles in the absence of crab burrows, and that ants cause a 50% reduction in intertidal polychaetes. Also, ant mound density is three times greater adjacent to marine systems. This study reveals that cross-ecosystem foraging terrestrial ants can clearly have strong impacts on marine resources. Furthermore, ecosystem engineers that modify and occupy habitat in these ecosystem boundaries can strongly regulate the degree of cross-ecosystem resource transfer and resultant top down impacts.

Hierarchical Synthesis of Coastal Ecosystem Health Indicators at Karimunjawa National Marine Park

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Danu Prasetya, Johan; Ambariyanto; Supriharyono; Purwanti, Frida

2018-02-01

The coastal ecosystem of Karimunjawa National Marine Park (KNMP) is facing various pressures, including from human activity. Monitoring the health condition of coastal ecosystems periodically is needed as an evaluation of the ecosystem condition. Systematic and consistent indicators are needed in monitoring of coastal ecosystem health. This paper presents hierarchical synthesis of coastal ecosystem health indicators using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Hierarchical synthesis is obtained from process of weighting by paired comparison based on expert judgments. The variables of coastal ecosystem health indicators in this synthesis consist of 3 level of variable, i.e. main variable, sub-variable and operational variable. As a result of assessment, coastal ecosystem health indicators consist of 3 main variables, i.e. State of Ecosystem, Pressure and Management. Main variables State of Ecosystem and Management obtain the same value i.e. 0.400, while Pressure value was 0.200. Each main variable consist of several sub-variable, i.e. coral reef, reef fish, mangrove and seagrass for State of Ecosystem; fisheries and marine tourism activity for Pressure; planning and regulation, institutional and also infrastructure and financing for Management. The highest value of sub-variable of main variable State of Ecosystem, Pressure and Management were coral reef (0.186); marine tourism pressure (0.133) and institutional (0.171), respectively. The highest value of operational variable of main variable State of Ecosystem, Pressure and Management were percent of coral cover (0.058), marine tourism pressure (0.133) and presence of zonation plan, regulation also socialization of monitoring program (0.53), respectively. Potential pressure from marine tourism activity is the variable that most affect the health of the ecosystem. The results of this research suggest that there is a need to develop stronger conservation strategies to facing with pressures from marine tourism

Integrating Climate Change Resilience Features into the Incremental Refinement of an Existing Marine Park

PubMed Central

Beckley, Lynnath E.; Kobryn, Halina T.; Lombard, Amanda T.; Radford, Ben; Heyward, Andrew

2016-01-01

Marine protected area (MPA) designs are likely to require iterative refinement as new knowledge is gained. In particular, there is an increasing need to consider the effects of climate change, especially the ability of ecosystems to resist and/or recover from climate-related disturbances, within the MPA planning process. However, there has been limited research addressing the incorporation of climate change resilience into MPA design. This study used Marxan conservation planning software with fine-scale shallow water (<20 m) bathymetry and habitat maps, models of major benthic communities for deeper water, and comprehensive human use information from Ningaloo Marine Park in Western Australia to identify climate change resilience features to integrate into the incremental refinement of the marine park. The study assessed the representation of benthic habitats within the current marine park zones, identified priority areas of high resilience for inclusion within no-take zones and examined if any iterative refinements to the current no-take zones are necessary. Of the 65 habitat classes, 16 did not meet representation targets within the current no-take zones, most of which were in deeper offshore waters. These deeper areas also demonstrated the highest resilience values and, as such, Marxan outputs suggested minor increases to the current no-take zones in the deeper offshore areas. This work demonstrates that inclusion of fine-scale climate change resilience features within the design process for MPAs is feasible, and can be applied to future marine spatial planning practices globally. PMID:27529820

Transnational Corporations as ‘Keystone Actors’ in Marine Ecosystems

PubMed Central

Österblom, Henrik; Jouffray, Jean-Baptiste; Folke, Carl; Crona, Beatrice; Troell, Max; Merrie, Andrew; Rockström, Johan

2015-01-01

Keystone species have a disproportionate influence on the structure and function of ecosystems. Here we analyze whether a keystone-like pattern can be observed in the relationship between transnational corporations and marine ecosystems globally. We show how thirteen corporations control 11-16% of the global marine catch (9-13 million tons) and 19-40% of the largest and most valuable stocks, including species that play important roles in their respective ecosystem. They dominate all segments of seafood production, operate through an extensive global network of subsidiaries and are profoundly involved in fisheries and aquaculture decision-making. Based on our findings, we define these companies as keystone actors of the Anthropocene. The phenomenon of keystone actors represents an increasingly important feature of the human-dominated world. Sustainable leadership by keystone actors could result in cascading effects throughout the entire seafood industry and enable a critical transition towards improved management of marine living resources and ecosystems. PMID:26017777

Modelling the interactions between DOM and bacteria in marine ecosystems: state of the art and future prospective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

polimene, Luca

2014-05-01

Marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) is the main source of carbon, nutrients and energy for marine prokaryotes, the most abundant life form in the oceans. Only a fraction of assimilated DOM is used by prokaryotes to synthesise new biomass (particulate organic matter, POM), while the rest is used for respiration or is excreted back into the environment as recalcitrant DOM (RDOM). The relative proportions of assimilated DOM that is distributed either to POM, respiration or RDOM is not constant but highly variable depending on the environmental conditions (e.g. nutrient availability, quality/quantity of DOM, temperature). This metabolic plasticity allows bacteria to shape the biogeochemistry of the surrounding waters by modulating three key carbon/energy fluxes fundamental for the functioning of the marine ecosystem: i) the transition from DOM to POM, ii) the remineralisation of carbon and nutrients, and iii) the transformation of labile DOM into recalcitrant DOM. The explicit representation of these processes (and their relative efficiency) in marine ecosystem models is a crucial (and challenging) issue which cannot be overlooked if we want to properly simulate marine biogeochemical cycles under present and climate changing conditions. This talk will provide an overview of how state of the art marine ecosystem models represent the interactions between DOM and bacteria, highlighting strengths and limits of the approaches currently used. A summary of future developments along with issues still open on the topic will also be presented and discussed.

Decline of the marine ecosystem caused by a reduction in the Atlantic overturning circulation.

PubMed

Schmittner, Andreas

2005-03-31

Reorganizations of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation were associated with large and abrupt climatic changes in the North Atlantic region during the last glacial period. Projections with climate models suggest that similar reorganizations may also occur in response to anthropogenic global warming. Here I use ensemble simulations with a coupled climate-ecosystem model of intermediate complexity to investigate the possible consequences of such disturbances to the marine ecosystem. In the simulations, a disruption of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation leads to a collapse of the North Atlantic plankton stocks to less than half of their initial biomass, owing to rapid shoaling of winter mixed layers and their associated separation from the deep ocean nutrient reservoir. Globally integrated export production declines by more than 20 per cent owing to reduced upwelling of nutrient-rich deep water and gradual depletion of upper ocean nutrient concentrations. These model results are consistent with the available high-resolution palaeorecord, and suggest that global ocean productivity is sensitive to changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.

Implications of climate change for northern Canada: freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems.

PubMed

Prowse, Terry D; Furgal, Chris; Wrona, Fred J; Reist, James D

2009-07-01

Climate variability and change is projected to have significant effects on the physical, chemical, and biological components of northern Canadian marine, terrestrial, and freshwater systems. As the climate continues to change, there will be consequences for biodiversity shifts and for the ranges and distribution of many species with resulting effects on availability, accessibility, and quality of resources upon which human populations rely. This will have implications for the protection and management of wildlife, fish, and fisheries resources; protected areas; and forests. The northward migration of species and the disruption and competition from invading species are already occurring and will continue to affect marine, terrestrial, and freshwater communities. Shifting environmental conditions will likely introduce new animal-transmitted diseases and redistribute some existing diseases, affecting key economic resources and some human populations. Stress on populations of iconic wildlife species, such as the polar bear, ringed seals, and whales, will continue as a result of changes in critical sea-ice habitat interactions. Where these stresses affect economically and culturally important species, they will have significant effects on people and regional economies. Further integrated, field-based monitoring and research programs, and the development of predictive models are required to allow for more detailed and comprehensive projections of change to be made, and to inform the development and implementation of appropriate adaptation, wildlife, and habitat conservation and protection strategies.

Managing living marine resources in a dynamic environment: The role of seasonal to decadal climate forecasts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tommasi, Desiree; Stock, Charles A.; Hobday, Alistair J.; Methot, Rick; Kaplan, Isaac C.; Eveson, J. Paige; Holsman, Kirstin; Miller, Timothy J.; Gaichas, Sarah; Gehlen, Marion; Pershing, Andrew; Vecchi, Gabriel A.; Msadek, Rym; Delworth, Tom; Eakin, C. Mark; Haltuch, Melissa A.; Séférian, Roland; Spillman, Claire M.; Hartog, Jason R.; Siedlecki, Samantha; Samhouri, Jameal F.; Muhling, Barbara; Asch, Rebecca G.; Pinsky, Malin L.; Saba, Vincent S.; Kapnick, Sarah B.; Gaitan, Carlos F.; Rykaczewski, Ryan R.; Alexander, Michael A.; Xue, Yan; Pegion, Kathleen V.; Lynch, Patrick; Payne, Mark R.; Kristiansen, Trond; Lehodey, Patrick; Werner, Francisco E.

2017-03-01

Recent developments in global dynamical climate prediction systems have allowed for skillful predictions of climate variables relevant to living marine resources (LMRs) at a scale useful to understanding and managing LMRs. Such predictions present opportunities for improved LMR management and industry operations, as well as new research avenues in fisheries science. LMRs respond to climate variability via changes in physiology and behavior. For species and systems where climate-fisheries links are well established, forecasted LMR responses can lead to anticipatory and more effective decisions, benefitting both managers and stakeholders. Here, we provide an overview of climate prediction systems and advances in seasonal to decadal prediction of marine-resource relevant environmental variables. We then describe a range of climate-sensitive LMR decisions that can be taken at lead-times of months to decades, before highlighting a range of pioneering case studies using climate predictions to inform LMR decisions. The success of these case studies suggests that many additional applications are possible. Progress, however, is limited by observational and modeling challenges. Priority developments include strengthening of the mechanistic linkages between climate and marine resource responses, development of LMR models able to explicitly represent such responses, integration of climate driven LMR dynamics in the multi-driver context within which marine resources exist, and improved prediction of ecosystem-relevant variables at the fine regional scales at which most marine resource decisions are made. While there are fundamental limits to predictability, continued advances in these areas have considerable potential to make LMR managers and industry decision more resilient to climate variability and help sustain valuable resources. Concerted dialog between scientists, LMR managers and industry is essential to realizing this potential.

[Effects of fishing on the marine ecosystem of Beibu Gulf].

PubMed

Chen, Zuo-Zhi; Qiu, Yong-Song; Jia, Xiao-Ping; Zhong, Zhi-Hui

2008-07-01

By using Ecopath with Ecosim 5.1 software, the Ecosim model of Beibu Gulf marine ecosystem in 1959-1960 was constructed, which included about 20 functional groups such as fishery, marine mammals, sea-birds, sharks, pelagic fishes, demersal fishes, and benthic crustaceans, etc. Through the comparison with the investigation data in 1997-1999, the effects of fishing on the structure and function of Beibu Gulf marine ecosystem were analyzed. The results indicated that with the increasing fishing pressure in past forty years, the ecosystem structure and function shifted drastically, with the biomass of long-lived, high trophic level and piscivorous fishes declined while short-lived and small fishes and benthic invertebrates dominated gradually. The biomass of piscivorous species in 1999 was only 6% of that in 1960, while cephalopods increased 2.7 times or more. The trophic level of the catch declined from 3.2 in 1960 to 2.98 in 1999, which fitted the rule of "fishing down the food web" and suggested that the present exploitation patterns were unsustainable. Based on the data of the 1990s, the changes of the ecosystem under decreasing fishing pressure were predicted. This study validated the feasibility of Ecosim model in predicting the effects of fishing pressure on marine ecosystem.

Climate and fishing steer ecosystem regeneration to uncertain economic futures

PubMed Central

Blenckner, Thorsten; Llope, Marcos; Möllmann, Christian; Voss, Rudi; Quaas, Martin F.; Casini, Michele; Lindegren, Martin; Folke, Carl; Chr. Stenseth, Nils

2015-01-01

Overfishing of large predatory fish populations has resulted in lasting restructurings of entire marine food webs worldwide, with serious socio-economic consequences. Fortunately, some degraded ecosystems show signs of recovery. A key challenge for ecosystem management is to anticipate the degree to which recovery is possible. By applying a statistical food-web model, using the Baltic Sea as a case study, we show that under current temperature and salinity conditions, complete recovery of this heavily altered ecosystem will be impossible. Instead, the ecosystem regenerates towards a new ecological baseline. This new baseline is characterized by lower and more variable biomass of cod, the commercially most important fish stock in the Baltic Sea, even under very low exploitation pressure. Furthermore, a socio-economic assessment shows that this signal is amplified at the level of societal costs, owing to increased uncertainty in biomass and reduced consumer surplus. Specifically, the combined economic losses amount to approximately 120 million € per year, which equals half of today's maximum economic yield for the Baltic cod fishery. Our analyses suggest that shifts in ecological and economic baselines can lead to higher economic uncertainty and costs for exploited ecosystems, in particular, under climate change. PMID:25694626

Challenges for Ecosystem Services Provided by Coral Reefs In the Face of Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kikuchi, R. K.; Elliff, C. I.

2014-12-01

to increase resilience and guarantee the adaptation of this ecosystem to climate change. Thus, considering that the majority of the marine ecosystem services we benefit from are provided from coastal habitats, of which coral reefs play an important role, the challenge at hand is in fact the interaction between local factors and climate change

How resilient are ecosystems in adapting to climate variability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Savenije, Hubert H. G.

2015-04-01

The conclusion often drawn in the media is that ecosystems may perish as a result of climate change. Although climatic trends may indeed lead to shifts in ecosystem composition, the challenge to adjust to climatic variability - even if there is no trend - is larger, particularly in semi-arid or topical climates where climatic variability is large compared to temperate climates. How do ecosystems buffer for climatic variability? The most powerful mechanism is to invest in root zone storage capacity, so as to guarantee access to water and nutrients during period of drought. This investment comes at a cost of having less energy available to invest in growth or formation of fruits. Ecosystems are expected to create sufficient buffer to overcome critical periods of drought, but not more than is necessary to survive or reproduce. Based on this concept, a methodology has been developed to estimate ecosystem root zone storage capacity at local, regional and global scale. These estimates correspond well with estimates made by combining soil and ecosystem information, but are more accurate and more detailed. The methodology shows that ecosystems have intrinsic capacity to adjust to climatic variability and hence have a high resilience to both climatic variability and climatic trends.

Submarine canyons represent an essential habitat network for krill hotspots in a Large Marine Ecosystem.

PubMed

Santora, Jarrod A; Zeno, Ramona; Dorman, Jeffrey G; Sydeman, William J

2018-05-15

Submarine canyon systems are ubiquitous features of marine ecosystems, known to support high levels of biodiversity. Canyons may be important to benthic-pelagic ecosystem coupling, but their role in concentrating plankton and structuring pelagic communities is not well known. We hypothesize that at the scale of a large marine ecosystem, canyons provide a critical habitat network, which maintain energy flow and trophic interactions. We evaluate canyon characteristics relative to the distribution and abundance of krill, critically important prey in the California Current Ecosystem. Using a geological database, we conducted a census of canyon locations, evaluated their dimensions, and quantified functional relationships with krill hotspots (i.e., sites of persistently elevated abundance) derived from hydro-acoustic surveys. We found that 76% of krill hotspots occurred within and adjacent to canyons. Most krill hotspots were associated with large shelf-incising canyons. Krill hotspots and canyon dimensions displayed similar coherence as a function of latitude and indicate a potential regional habitat network. The latitudinal migration of many fish, seabirds and mammals may be enhanced by using this canyon-krill network to maintain foraging opportunities. Biogeographic assessments and predictions of krill and krill-predator distributions under climate change may be improved by accounting for canyons in habitat models.

Marine Mammal Impacts in Exploited Ecosystems: Would Large Scale Culling Benefit Fisheries?

PubMed Central

Morissette, Lyne; Christensen, Villy; Pauly, Daniel

2012-01-01

Competition between marine mammals and fisheries for marine resources—whether real or perceived—has become a major issue for several countries and in international fora. We examined trophic interactions between marine mammals and fisheries based on a resource overlap index, using seven Ecopath models including marine mammal groups. On a global scale, most food consumed by marine mammals consisted of prey types that were not the main target of fisheries. For each ecosystem, the primary production required (PPR) to sustain marine mammals was less than half the PPR to sustain fisheries catches. We also developed an index representing the mean trophic level of marine mammal's consumption (TLQ) and compared it with the mean trophic level of fisheries' catches (TLC). Our results showed that overall TLQ was lower than TLC (2.88 versus 3.42). As fisheries increasingly exploit lower-trophic level species, the competition with marine mammals may become more important. We used mixed trophic impact analysis to evaluate indirect trophic effects of marine mammals, and in some cases found beneficial effects on some prey. Finally, we assessed the change in the trophic structure of an ecosystem after a simulated extirpation of marine mammal populations. We found that this lead to alterations in the structure of the ecosystems, and that there was no clear and direct relationship between marine mammals' predation and the potential catch by fisheries. Indeed, total biomass, with no marine mammals in the ecosystem, generally remained surprisingly similar, or even decreased for some species. PMID:22970153

Marine mammal impacts in exploited ecosystems: would large scale culling benefit fisheries?

PubMed

Morissette, Lyne; Christensen, Villy; Pauly, Daniel

2012-01-01

Competition between marine mammals and fisheries for marine resources-whether real or perceived-has become a major issue for several countries and in international fora. We examined trophic interactions between marine mammals and fisheries based on a resource overlap index, using seven Ecopath models including marine mammal groups. On a global scale, most food consumed by marine mammals consisted of prey types that were not the main target of fisheries. For each ecosystem, the primary production required (PPR) to sustain marine mammals was less than half the PPR to sustain fisheries catches. We also developed an index representing the mean trophic level of marine mammal's consumption (TL(Q)) and compared it with the mean trophic level of fisheries' catches (TL(C)). Our results showed that overall TL(Q) was lower than TL(C) (2.88 versus 3.42). As fisheries increasingly exploit lower-trophic level species, the competition with marine mammals may become more important. We used mixed trophic impact analysis to evaluate indirect trophic effects of marine mammals, and in some cases found beneficial effects on some prey. Finally, we assessed the change in the trophic structure of an ecosystem after a simulated extirpation of marine mammal populations. We found that this lead to alterations in the structure of the ecosystems, and that there was no clear and direct relationship between marine mammals' predation and the potential catch by fisheries. Indeed, total biomass, with no marine mammals in the ecosystem, generally remained surprisingly similar, or even decreased for some species.

The role of sustained observations in tracking impacts of environmental change on marine biodiversity and ecosystems

PubMed Central

Mieszkowska, N.; Sugden, H.; Firth, L. B.; Hawkins, S. J.

2014-01-01

Marine biodiversity currently faces unprecedented threats from multiple pressures arising from human activities. Global drivers such as climate change and ocean acidification interact with regional eutrophication, exploitation of commercial fish stocks and localized pressures including pollution, coastal development and the extraction of aggregates and fuel, causing alteration and degradation of habitats and communities. Segregating natural from anthropogenically induced change in marine ecosystems requires long-term, sustained observations of marine biota. In this review, we outline the history of biological recording in the coastal and shelf seas of the UK and Ireland and highlight where sustained observations have contributed new understanding of how anthropogenic activities have impacted on marine biodiversity. The contributions of sustained observations, from those collected at observatories, single station platforms and multiple-site programmes to the emergent field of multiple stressor impacts research, are discussed, along with implications for management and sustainable governance of marine resources in an era of unprecedented use of the marine environment. PMID:25157190

Marine biodiversity–ecosystem functions under uncertain environmental futures

PubMed Central

Bulling, Mark T.; Hicks, Natalie; Murray, Leigh; Paterson, David M.; Raffaelli, Dave; White, Piran C. L.; Solan, Martin

2010-01-01

Anthropogenic activity is currently leading to dramatic transformations of ecosystems and losses of biodiversity. The recognition that these ecosystems provide services that are essential for human well-being has led to a major interest in the forms of the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationship. However, there is a lack of studies examining the impact of climate change on these relationships and it remains unclear how multiple climatic drivers may affect levels of ecosystem functioning. Here, we examine the roles of two important climate change variables, temperature and concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, on the relationship between invertebrate species richness and nutrient release in a model benthic estuarine system. We found a positive relationship between invertebrate species richness and the levels of release of NH4-N into the water column, but no effect of species richness on the release of PO4-P. Higher temperatures and greater concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide had a negative impact on nutrient release. Importantly, we found significant interactions between the climate variables, indicating that reliably predicting the effects of future climate change will not be straightforward as multiple drivers are unlikely to have purely additive effects, resulting in increased levels of uncertainty. PMID:20513718

Marine biodiversity-ecosystem functions under uncertain environmental futures.

PubMed

Bulling, Mark T; Hicks, Natalie; Murray, Leigh; Paterson, David M; Raffaelli, Dave; White, Piran C L; Solan, Martin

2010-07-12

Anthropogenic activity is currently leading to dramatic transformations of ecosystems and losses of biodiversity. The recognition that these ecosystems provide services that are essential for human well-being has led to a major interest in the forms of the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship. However, there is a lack of studies examining the impact of climate change on these relationships and it remains unclear how multiple climatic drivers may affect levels of ecosystem functioning. Here, we examine the roles of two important climate change variables, temperature and concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, on the relationship between invertebrate species richness and nutrient release in a model benthic estuarine system. We found a positive relationship between invertebrate species richness and the levels of release of NH(4)-N into the water column, but no effect of species richness on the release of PO(4)-P. Higher temperatures and greater concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide had a negative impact on nutrient release. Importantly, we found significant interactions between the climate variables, indicating that reliably predicting the effects of future climate change will not be straightforward as multiple drivers are unlikely to have purely additive effects, resulting in increased levels of uncertainty.

VECTORS of change in the marine environment: Ecosystem and economic impacts and management implications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Austen, M. C.; Crowe, T. P.; Elliott, M.; Paterson, D. M.; Peck, M. A.; Piraino, S.

2018-02-01

Human use of the European marine environment is increasing and diversifying. This is creating new mechanisms for human induced-changes in marine life which need to be understood and quantified as well as the impact of these changes on ecosystems, their structures (e.g. biodiversity) and functioning (e.g. productivity), and the social and economic consequences that arise. The current and emerging pressures are multiple and interacting, arising, for example, from transport, platforms for renewable and non-renewable energy, exploitation of living and non-living resources, agricultural and industrial discharges, together with wider environmental changes (including climate change). Anticipating the future consequences of these pressures and vectors of change for marine life and of adaptation and mitigation measures (such as the introduction of new technologies and structures, new ballast water practices, ocean and offshore wind energy devices and new fishing strategies) is a prerequisite to the development and implementation of strategies, policies and regulations to manage the marine environment, such as the IMO Convention on ballast water management and the EU Maritime Policy and Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

The NextData Project: a national Italian system for the retrieval, storage, access and diffusion of environmental and climate data from mountain and marine areas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Provenzale, Antonello

2013-04-01

Mountains are sentinels of climate and environmental change and many marine regions provide information on past climate variations. The Project of Interest NextData will favour the implementation of measurement networks in remote mountain and marine areas and will develop efficient web portals to access meteoclimatic and atmospheric composition data, past climate information from ice and sediment cores, biodiversity and ecosystem data, measurements of the hydrological cycle, marine reanalyses and climate projections at global and regional scale. New data on the present and past climatic variability and future climate projections in the Alps, the Himalaya-Karakoram, the Mediterranean region and other areas of interest will be obtained and made available. The pilot studies conducted during the project will allow for obtaining new estimates on the availability of water resources and on the effects of atmospheric aerosols on high-altitude environments, as well as new assessments of the impact of climate change on ecosystems, health and societies in mountain regions. The system of archives and the scientific results produced by the NextData project will provide a unique data base for research, for environmental management and for the estimate of climate change impacts, allowing for the development of knowledge-based environmental and climate adaptation policies.

Provenance for actionable data products and indicators in marine ecosystem assessments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beaulieu, S. E.; Maffei, A. R.; Fox, P. A.; West, P.; Di Stefano, M.; Hare, J. A.; Fogarty, M.

2013-12-01

Ecosystem-based management of Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) involves the sharing of data and information products among a diverse set of stakeholders - from environmental and fisheries scientists to policy makers, commercial entities, nonprofits, and the public. Often the data products that are shared have resulted from a number of processing steps and may also have involved the combination of a number of data sources. The traceability from an actionable data product or indicator back to its original data source(s) is important not just for trust and understanding of each final data product, but also to compare with similar data products produced by the different stakeholder groups. For a data product to be traceable, its provenance, i.e., lineage or history, must be recorded and preferably machine-readable. We are collaborating on a use case to develop a software framework for the bi-annual Ecosystem Status Report (ESR) for the U.S. Northeast Shelf LME. The ESR presents indicators of ecosystem status including climate forcing, primary and secondary production, anthropogenic factors, and integrated ecosystem measures. Our software framework retrieves data, conducts standard analyses, provides iterative and interactive visualization, and generates final graphics for the ESR. The specific process for each data and information product is updated in a metadata template, including data source, code versioning, attribution, and related contextual information suitable for traceability, repeatability, explanation, verification, and validation. Here we present the use of standard metadata for provenance for data products in the ESR, in particular the W3C provenance (PROV) family of specifications, including the PROV-O ontology which maps the PROV data model to RDF. We are also exploring extensions to PROV-O in development (e.g., PROV-ES for Earth Science Data Systems, D-PROV for workflow structure). To associate data products in the ESR to domain-specific ontologies we are

Improving the interpretability of climate landscape metrics: An ecological risk analysis of Japan's Marine Protected Areas.

PubMed

García Molinos, Jorge; Takao, Shintaro; Kumagai, Naoki H; Poloczanska, Elvira S; Burrows, Michael T; Fujii, Masahiko; Yamano, Hiroya

2017-10-01

Conservation efforts strive to protect significant swaths of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems from a range of threats. As climate change becomes an increasing concern, these efforts must take into account how resilient-protected spaces will be in the face of future drivers of change such as warming temperatures. Climate landscape metrics, which signal the spatial magnitude and direction of climate change, support a convenient initial assessment of potential threats to and opportunities within ecosystems to inform conservation and policy efforts where biological data are not available. However, inference of risk from purely physical climatic changes is difficult unless set in a meaningful ecological context. Here, we aim to establish this context using historical climatic variability, as a proxy for local adaptation by resident biota, to identify areas where current local climate conditions will remain extant and future regional climate analogues will emerge. This information is then related to the processes governing species' climate-driven range edge dynamics, differentiating changes in local climate conditions as promoters of species range contractions from those in neighbouring locations facilitating range expansions. We applied this approach to assess the future climatic stability and connectivity of Japanese waters and its network of marine protected areas (MPAs). We find 88% of Japanese waters transitioning to climates outside their historical variability bounds by 2035, resulting in large reductions in the amount of available climatic space potentially promoting widespread range contractions and expansions. Areas of high connectivity, where shifting climates converge, are present along sections of the coast facilitated by the strong latitudinal gradient of the Japanese archipelago and its ocean current system. While these areas overlap significantly with areas currently under significant anthropogenic pressures, they also include much of the MPA

Increased sensitivity to climate change in disturbed ecosystems.

PubMed

Kröel-Dulay, György; Ransijn, Johannes; Schmidt, Inger Kappel; Beier, Claus; De Angelis, Paolo; de Dato, Giovanbattista; Dukes, Jeffrey S; Emmett, Bridget; Estiarte, Marc; Garadnai, János; Kongstad, Jane; Kovács-Láng, Edit; Larsen, Klaus Steenberg; Liberati, Dario; Ogaya, Romà; Riis-Nielsen, Torben; Smith, Andrew R; Sowerby, Alwyn; Tietema, Albert; Penuelas, Josep

2015-03-24

Human domination of the biosphere includes changes to disturbance regimes, which push many ecosystems towards early-successional states. Ecological theory predicts that early-successional ecosystems are more sensitive to perturbations than mature systems, but little evidence supports this relationship for the perturbation of climate change. Here we show that vegetation (abundance, species richness and species composition) across seven European shrublands is quite resistant to moderate experimental warming and drought, and responsiveness is associated with the dynamic state of the ecosystem, with recently disturbed sites responding to treatments. Furthermore, most of these responses are not rapid (2-5 years) but emerge over a longer term (7-14 years). These results suggest that successional state influences the sensitivity of ecosystems to climate change, and that ecosystems recovering from disturbances may be sensitive to even modest climatic changes. A research bias towards undisturbed ecosystems might thus lead to an underestimation of the impacts of climate change.

Climate-driven regime shifts in Arctic marine benthos

PubMed Central

Kortsch, Susanne; Primicerio, Raul; Beuchel, Frank; Renaud, Paul E.; Rodrigues, João; Lønne, Ole Jørgen; Gulliksen, Bjørn

2012-01-01

Climate warming can trigger abrupt ecosystem changes in the Arctic. Despite the considerable interest in characterizing and understanding the ecological impact of rapid climate warming in the Arctic, few long time series exist that allow addressing these research goals. During a 30-y period (1980–2010) of gradually increasing seawater temperature and decreasing sea ice cover in Svalbard, we document rapid and extensive structural changes in the rocky-bottom communities of two Arctic fjords. The most striking component of the benthic reorganization was an abrupt fivefold increase in macroalgal cover in 1995 in Kongsfjord and an eightfold increase in 2000 in Smeerenburgfjord. Simultaneous changes in the abundance of benthic invertebrates suggest that the macroalgae played a key structuring role in these communities. The abrupt, substantial, and persistent nature of the changes observed is indicative of a climate-driven ecological regime shift. The ecological processes thought to drive the observed regime shifts are likely to promote the borealization of these Arctic marine communities in the coming years. PMID:22891319

An aerobic scope-based habitat suitability index for predicting the effects of multi-dimensional climate change stressors on marine teleosts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Del Raye, Gen; Weng, Kevin C.

2015-03-01

Climate change will expose many marine ecosystems to temperature, oxygen and CO2 conditions that have not been experienced for millennia. Predicting the impact of these changes on marine fishes is difficult due to the complexity of these disparate stressors and the inherent non-linearity of physiological systems. Aerobic scope (the difference between maximum and minimum aerobic metabolic rates) is a coherent, unifying physiological framework that can be used to examine all of the major environmental changes expected to occur in the oceans during this century. Using this framework, we develop a physiology-based habitat suitability model to forecast the response of marine fishes to simultaneous ocean acidification, warming and deoxygenation, including interactions between all three stressors. We present an example of the model parameterized for Thunnus albacares (yellowfin tuna), an important fisheries species that is likely to be affected by climate change. We anticipate that if embedded into multispecies ecosystem models, our model could help to more precisely forecast climate change impacts on the distribution and abundance of other high value species. Finally, we show how our model may indicate the potential for, and limits of, adaptation to chronic stressors.

The role of a dominant predator in shaping biodiversity over space and time in a marine ecosystem.

PubMed

Ellingsen, Kari E; Anderson, Marti J; Shackell, Nancy L; Tveraa, Torkild; Yoccoz, Nigel G; Frank, Kenneth T

2015-09-01

1. Exploitation of living marine resources has resulted in major changes to populations of targeted species and functional groups of large-bodied species in the ocean. However, the effects of overfishing and collapse of large top predators on the broad-scale biodiversity of oceanic ecosystems remain largely unexplored. 2. Populations of the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) were overfished and several collapsed in the early 1990s across Atlantic Canada, providing a unique opportunity to study potential ecosystem-level effects of the reduction of a dominant predator on fish biodiversity, and to identify how such effects might interact with other environmental factors, such as changes in climate, over time. 3. We combined causal modelling with model selection and multimodel inference to analyse 41 years of fishery-independent survey data (1970-2010) and quantify ecosystem-level effects of overfishing and climate variation on the biodiversity of fishes across a broad area (172 000 km(2) ) of the Scotian Shelf. 4. We found that alpha and beta diversity increased with decreases in cod occurrence; fish communities were less homogeneous and more variable in systems where cod no longer dominated. These effects were most pronounced in the colder north-eastern parts of the Scotian Shelf. 5. Our results provide strong evidence that intensive harvesting (and collapse) of marine apex predators can have large impacts on biodiversity, with far-reaching consequences for ecological stability across an entire ecosystem. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.

Environmental forcing and Southern Ocean marine predator populations: effects of climate change and variability.

PubMed

Trathan, P N; Forcada, J; Murphy, E J

2007-12-29

The Southern Ocean is a major component within the global ocean and climate system and potentially the location where the most rapid climate change is most likely to happen, particularly in the high-latitude polar regions. In these regions, even small temperature changes can potentially lead to major environmental perturbations. Climate change is likely to be regional and may be expressed in various ways, including alterations to climate and weather patterns across a variety of time-scales that include changes to the long interdecadal background signals such as the development of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Oscillating climate signals such as ENSO potentially provide a unique opportunity to explore how biological communities respond to change. This approach is based on the premise that biological responses to shorter-term sub-decadal climate variability signals are potentially the best predictor of biological responses over longer time-scales. Around the Southern Ocean, marine predator populations show periodicity in breeding performance and productivity, with relationships with the environment driven by physical forcing from the ENSO region in the Pacific. Wherever examined, these relationships are congruent with mid-trophic-level processes that are also correlated with environmental variability. The short-term changes to ecosystem structure and function observed during ENSO events herald potential long-term changes that may ensue following regional climate change. For example, in the South Atlantic, failure of Antarctic krill recruitment will inevitably foreshadow recruitment failures in a range of higher trophic-level marine predators. Where predator species are not able to accommodate by switching to other prey species, population-level changes will follow. The Southern Ocean, though oceanographically interconnected, is not a single ecosystem and different areas are dominated by different food webs. Where species occupy different positions in

Preliminary review of adaptation options for climate-sensitive ecosystems and resources. A report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research

USGS Publications Warehouse

Baron, Jill S.; Griffith, Brad; Joyce, Linda A.; Kareiva, Peter; Keller, Brian D.; Palmer, Margaret A.; Peterson, Charles H.; Scott, J. Michael; Julius, Susan Herrod; West, Jordan M.

2008-01-01

Climate variables are key determinants of geographic distributions and biophysical characteristics of ecosystems, communities, and species. Climate change is therefore affecting many species attributes, ecological interactions, and ecosystem processes. Because changes in the climate system will continue into the future regardless of emissions mitigation, strategies for protecting climate-sensitive ecosystems through management will be increasingly important. While there will always be uncertainties associated with the future path of climate change, the response of ecosystems to climate impacts, and the effects of management, it is both possible and essential for adaptation to proceed using the best available science. This report provides a preliminary review of adaptation options for climate-sensitive ecosystems and resources in the United States. The term “adaptation” in this document refers to adjustments in human social systems (e.g., management) in response to climate stimuli and their effects. Since management always occurs in the context of desired ecosystem conditions or natural resource management goals, it is instructive to examine particular goals and processes used by different organizations to fulfill their objectives. Such an examination allows for discussion of specific adaptation options as well as potential barriers and opportunities for implementation. Using this approach, this report presents a series of chapters on the following selected management systems: National Forests, National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, Wild and Scenic Rivers, National Estuaries, and Marine Protected Areas. For these chapters, the authors draw on the literature, their own expert opinion, and expert workshops composed of resource management scientists and representatives of managing agencies. The information drawn from across these chapters is then analyzed to develop the key synthetic messages presented below.

Pairing Quaternary paleoecology and modern ROV exploration to produce novel reconstructions of marine ecosystem responses to millennial-scale climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Myhre, S. E.; Pak, D. K.; Borreggine, M. J.; Hill, T. M.; Kennett, J.; Nicholson, C.; Deutsch, C. A.

2017-12-01

One of the most interesting problems for 21st Century marine ecology is understanding the potential physical, chemical, and biological scale of future climate-forced oceanographic changes. These fundamental questions can be informed through the examination of micro- and macrofauna from Quaternary sedimentary sequences, combined with modern observations of continental margin ecosystems. Here we examine Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) exploratory videos and sedimentary push cores, to identify biological assemblages, including mollusc, echinoderm, ostracod, and foraminifera density, diversity, and community structure from Santa Barbara Basin in the California Borderland. ROV explorations, from 380-500 meters below sea level (mbsl), describe the zonation of benthic fauna and the distribution of chemosynthetic trophic webs, which are consequences of gradations in the oxygen minimum zone and the ventilating sill depth (475 mbsl). Such observations reveal the modern vertical distribution of chemosynthetic bacterial communities and shallower, diverse communities associated with detrital food webs. Biological assemblages from 16.1-3.4 ka (from core MV0811-15JC, collected at 418 mbsl) produce a suite of paleoceanographic indicators, such as dissolved oxygen concentrations (foraminifera), chemosynthetic trophic webs (molluscs), and water masses (ostracods). These assemblages demonstrate how continental margin ecosystems reorganize vertically (through the water column) and geographically through climate events, for example through the loss of cryophilic species, the ephemeral occurrence of chemosynthetic communities, and the trace fossil evidence (through predation scarring on mollusc shells) of higher trophic web interactions. Together with ROV seafloor observations, these communities can reconstruct step-by-step vertical changes in the zonation of the continental margin, and can identify intervals of zonation change in relation to both Santa Barbara Basin ventilation and the

Climate change, biotic interactions and ecosystem services

PubMed Central

Montoya, José M.; Raffaelli, Dave

2010-01-01

Climate change is real. The wrangling debates are over, and we now need to move onto a predictive ecology that will allow managers of landscapes and policy makers to adapt to the likely changes in biodiversity over the coming decades. There is ample evidence that ecological responses are already occurring at the individual species (population) level. The challenge is how to synthesize the growing list of such observations with a coherent body of theory that will enable us to predict where and when changes will occur, what the consequences might be for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and what we might do practically in order to maintain those systems in as good condition as possible. It is thus necessary to investigate the effects of climate change at the ecosystem level and to consider novel emergent ecosystems composed of new species assemblages arising from differential rates of range shifts of species. Here, we present current knowledge on the effects of climate change on biotic interactions and ecosystem services supply, and summarize the papers included in this volume. We discuss how resilient ecosystems are in the face of the multiple components that characterize climate change, and suggest which current ecological theories may be used as a starting point to predict ecosystem-level effects of climate change. PMID:20513709

Climate change threatens the world's marine protected areas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bruno, John F.; Bates, Amanda E.; Cacciapaglia, Chris; Pike, Elizabeth P.; Amstrup, Steven C.; van Hooidonk, Ruben; Henson, Stephanie A.; Aronson, Richard B.

2018-06-01

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a primary management tool for mitigating threats to marine biodiversity1,2. MPAs and the species they protect, however, are increasingly being impacted by climate change. Here we show that, despite local protections, the warming associated with continued business-as-usual emissions (RCP8.5)3 will likely result in further habitat and species losses throughout low-latitude and tropical MPAs4,5. With continued business-as-usual emissions, mean sea-surface temperatures within MPAs are projected to increase 0.035 °C per year and warm an additional 2.8 °C by 2100. Under these conditions, the time of emergence (the year when sea-surface temperature and oxygen concentration exceed natural variability) is mid-century in 42% of 309 no-take marine reserves. Moreover, projected warming rates and the existing `community thermal safety margin' (the inherent buffer against warming based on the thermal sensitivity of constituent species) both vary among ecoregions and with latitude. The community thermal safety margin will be exceeded by 2050 in the tropics and by 2150 for many higher latitude MPAs. Importantly, the spatial distribution of emergence is stressor-specific. Hence, rearranging MPAs to minimize exposure to one stressor could well increase exposure to another. Continued business-as-usual emissions will likely disrupt many marine ecosystems, reducing the benefits of MPAs.

Modelling the combined impacts of climate change and direct anthropogenic drivers on the ecosystem of the northwest European continental shelf

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wakelin, Sarah L.; Artioli, Yuri; Butenschön, Momme; Allen, J. Icarus; Holt, Jason T.

2015-12-01

The potential response of the marine ecosystem of the northwest European continental shelf to climate change under a medium emissions scenario (SRES A1B) is investigated using the coupled hydrodynamics-ecosystem model POLCOMS-ERSEM. Changes in the near future (2030-2040) and the far future (2082-2099) are compared to the recent past (1983-2000). The sensitivity of the ecosystem to potential changes in multiple anthropogenic drivers (river nutrient loads and benthic trawling) in the near future is compared to the impact of changes in climate. With the exception of the biomass of benthic organisms, the influence of the anthropogenic drivers only exceeds the impact of climate change in coastal regions. Increasing river nitrogen loads has a limited impact on the ecosystem whilst reducing river nitrogen and phosphate concentrations affects net primary production (netPP) and phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass. Direct anthropogenic forcing is seen to mitigate/amplify the effects of climate change. Increasing river nitrogen has the potential to amplify the effects of climate change at the coast by increasing netPP. Reducing river nitrogen and phosphate mitigates the effects of climate change for netPP and the biomass of small phytoplankton and large zooplankton species but amplifies changes in the biomass of large phytoplankton and small zooplankton.

Assessing climate-sensitive ecosystems in the southeastern United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

Costanza, Jennifer; Beck, Scott; Pyne, Milo; Terando, Adam; Rubino, Matthew J.; White, Rickie; Collazo, Jaime

2016-08-11

Climate change impacts ecosystems in many ways, from effects on species to phenology to wildfire dynamics. Assessing the potential vulnerability of ecosystems to future changes in climate is an important first step in prioritizing and planning for conservation. Although assessments of climate change vulnerability commonly are done for species, fewer have been done for ecosystems. To aid regional conservation planning efforts, we assessed climate change vulnerability for ecosystems in the Southeastern United States and Caribbean.First, we solicited input from experts to create a list of candidate ecosystems for assessment. From that list, 12 ecosystems were selected for a vulnerability assessment that was based on a synthesis of available geographic information system (GIS) data and literature related to 3 components of vulnerability—sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity. This literature and data synthesis comprised “Phase I” of the assessment. Sensitivity is the degree to which the species or processes in the ecosystem are affected by climate. Exposure is the likely future change in important climate and sea level variables. Adaptive capacity is the degree to which ecosystems can adjust to changing conditions. Where available, GIS data relevant to each of these components were used. For example, we summarized observed and projected climate, protected areas existing in 2011, projected sea-level rise, and projected urbanization across each ecosystem’s distribution. These summaries were supplemented with information in the literature, and a short narrative assessment was compiled for each ecosystem. We also summarized all information into a qualitative vulnerability rating for each ecosystem.Next, for 2 of the 12 ecosystems (East Gulf Coastal Plain Near-Coast Pine Flatwoods and Nashville Basin Limestone Glade and Woodland), the NatureServe Habitat Climate Change Vulnerability Index (HCCVI) framework was used as an alternative approach for assessing

The role of sustained observations in tracking impacts of environmental change on marine biodiversity and ecosystems.

PubMed

Mieszkowska, N; Sugden, H; Firth, L B; Hawkins, S J

2014-09-28

Marine biodiversity currently faces unprecedented threats from multiple pressures arising from human activities. Global drivers such as climate change and ocean acidification interact with regional eutrophication, exploitation of commercial fish stocks and localized pressures including pollution, coastal development and the extraction of aggregates and fuel, causing alteration and degradation of habitats and communities. Segregating natural from anthropogenically induced change in marine ecosystems requires long-term, sustained observations of marine biota. In this review, we outline the history of biological recording in the coastal and shelf seas of the UK and Ireland and highlight where sustained observations have contributed new understanding of how anthropogenic activities have impacted on marine biodiversity. The contributions of sustained observations, from those collected at observatories, single station platforms and multiple-site programmes to the emergent field of multiple stressor impacts research, are discussed, along with implications for management and sustainable governance of marine resources in an era of unprecedented use of the marine environment. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Isbell, Forest; Craven, Dylan; Connolly, John; Loreau, Michel; Schmid, Bernhard; Beierkuhnlein, Carl; Bezemer, T. Martijn; Bonin, Catherine; Bruelheide, Helge; de Luca, Enrica; Ebeling, Anne; Griffin, John N.; Guo, Qinfeng; Hautier, Yann; Hector, Andy; Jentsch, Anke; Kreyling, Jürgen; Lanta, Vojtěch; Manning, Pete; Meyer, Sebastian T.; Mori, Akira S.; Naeem, Shahid; Niklaus, Pascal A.; Polley, H. Wayne; Reich, Peter B.; Roscher, Christiane; Seabloom, Eric W.; Smith, Melinda D.; Thakur, Madhav P.; Tilman, David; Tracy, Benjamin F.; van der Putten, Wim H.; van Ruijven, Jasper; Weigelt, Alexandra; Weisser, Wolfgang W.; Wilsey, Brian; Eisenhauer, Nico

2015-10-01

It remains unclear whether biodiversity buffers ecosystems against climate extremes, which are becoming increasingly frequent worldwide. Early results suggested that the ecosystem productivity of diverse grassland plant communities was more resistant, changing less during drought, and more resilient, recovering more quickly after drought, than that of depauperate communities. However, subsequent experimental tests produced mixed results. Here we use data from 46 experiments that manipulated grassland plant diversity to test whether biodiversity provides resistance during and resilience after climate events. We show that biodiversity increased ecosystem resistance for a broad range of climate events, including wet or dry, moderate or extreme, and brief or prolonged events. Across all studies and climate events, the productivity of low-diversity communities with one or two species changed by approximately 50% during climate events, whereas that of high-diversity communities with 16-32 species was more resistant, changing by only approximately 25%. By a year after each climate event, ecosystem productivity had often fully recovered, or overshot, normal levels of productivity in both high- and low-diversity communities, leading to no detectable dependence of ecosystem resilience on biodiversity. Our results suggest that biodiversity mainly stabilizes ecosystem productivity, and productivity-dependent ecosystem services, by increasing resistance to climate events. Anthropogenic environmental changes that drive biodiversity loss thus seem likely to decrease ecosystem stability, and restoration of biodiversity to increase it, mainly by changing the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate events.

Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes.

PubMed

Isbell, Forest; Craven, Dylan; Connolly, John; Loreau, Michel; Schmid, Bernhard; Beierkuhnlein, Carl; Bezemer, T Martijn; Bonin, Catherine; Bruelheide, Helge; de Luca, Enrica; Ebeling, Anne; Griffin, John N; Guo, Qinfeng; Hautier, Yann; Hector, Andy; Jentsch, Anke; Kreyling, Jürgen; Lanta, Vojtěch; Manning, Pete; Meyer, Sebastian T; Mori, Akira S; Naeem, Shahid; Niklaus, Pascal A; Polley, H Wayne; Reich, Peter B; Roscher, Christiane; Seabloom, Eric W; Smith, Melinda D; Thakur, Madhav P; Tilman, David; Tracy, Benjamin F; van der Putten, Wim H; van Ruijven, Jasper; Weigelt, Alexandra; Weisser, Wolfgang W; Wilsey, Brian; Eisenhauer, Nico

2015-10-22

It remains unclear whether biodiversity buffers ecosystems against climate extremes, which are becoming increasingly frequent worldwide. Early results suggested that the ecosystem productivity of diverse grassland plant communities was more resistant, changing less during drought, and more resilient, recovering more quickly after drought, than that of depauperate communities. However, subsequent experimental tests produced mixed results. Here we use data from 46 experiments that manipulated grassland plant diversity to test whether biodiversity provides resistance during and resilience after climate events. We show that biodiversity increased ecosystem resistance for a broad range of climate events, including wet or dry, moderate or extreme, and brief or prolonged events. Across all studies and climate events, the productivity of low-diversity communities with one or two species changed by approximately 50% during climate events, whereas that of high-diversity communities with 16-32 species was more resistant, changing by only approximately 25%. By a year after each climate event, ecosystem productivity had often fully recovered, or overshot, normal levels of productivity in both high- and low-diversity communities, leading to no detectable dependence of ecosystem resilience on biodiversity. Our results suggest that biodiversity mainly stabilizes ecosystem productivity, and productivity-dependent ecosystem services, by increasing resistance to climate events. Anthropogenic environmental changes that drive biodiversity loss thus seem likely to decrease ecosystem stability, and restoration of biodiversity to increase it, mainly by changing the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate events.

Projected decreases in future marine export production: the role of the carbon flux through the upper ocean ecosystem

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Laufkotter, Charlotte; Vogt, Meike; Gruber, Nicolas

Here, accurate projections of marine particle export production (EP) are crucial for predicting the response of the marine carbon cycle to climate change, yet models show a wide range in both global EP and their responses to climate change. This is, in part, due to EP being the net result of a series of processes, starting with net primary production (NPP) in the sunlit upper ocean, followed by the formation of particulate organic matter and the subsequent sinking and remineralisation of these particles, with each of these processes responding differently to changes in environmental conditions. Here, we compare future projectionsmore » in EP over the 21st century, generated by four marine ecosystem models under the high emission scenario Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 8.5 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and determine the processes driving these changes. The models simulate small to modest decreases in global EP between -1 and -12%. Models differ greatly with regard to the drivers causing these changes. Among them, the formation of particles is the most uncertain process with models not agreeing on either magnitude or the direction of change. The removal of the sinking particles by remineralisation is simulated to increase in the low and intermediate latitudes in three models, driven by either warming-induced increases in remineralisation or slower particle sinking, and show insignificant changes in the remaining model. Changes in ecosystem structure, particularly the relative role of diatoms matters as well, as diatoms produce larger and denser particles that sink faster and are partly protected from remineralisation. Also this controlling factor is afflicted with high uncertainties, particularly since the models differ already substantially with regard to both the initial (present-day) distribution of diatoms (between 11–94% in the Southern Ocean) and the diatom contribution to particle formation (0.6–3.8 times higher

Projected decreases in future marine export production: the role of the carbon flux through the upper ocean ecosystem

DOE PAGES

Laufkotter, Charlotte; Vogt, Meike; Gruber, Nicolas; ...

2016-07-14

Here, accurate projections of marine particle export production (EP) are crucial for predicting the response of the marine carbon cycle to climate change, yet models show a wide range in both global EP and their responses to climate change. This is, in part, due to EP being the net result of a series of processes, starting with net primary production (NPP) in the sunlit upper ocean, followed by the formation of particulate organic matter and the subsequent sinking and remineralisation of these particles, with each of these processes responding differently to changes in environmental conditions. Here, we compare future projectionsmore » in EP over the 21st century, generated by four marine ecosystem models under the high emission scenario Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 8.5 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and determine the processes driving these changes. The models simulate small to modest decreases in global EP between -1 and -12%. Models differ greatly with regard to the drivers causing these changes. Among them, the formation of particles is the most uncertain process with models not agreeing on either magnitude or the direction of change. The removal of the sinking particles by remineralisation is simulated to increase in the low and intermediate latitudes in three models, driven by either warming-induced increases in remineralisation or slower particle sinking, and show insignificant changes in the remaining model. Changes in ecosystem structure, particularly the relative role of diatoms matters as well, as diatoms produce larger and denser particles that sink faster and are partly protected from remineralisation. Also this controlling factor is afflicted with high uncertainties, particularly since the models differ already substantially with regard to both the initial (present-day) distribution of diatoms (between 11–94% in the Southern Ocean) and the diatom contribution to particle formation (0.6–3.8 times higher

Climate velocity and the future global redistribution of marine biodiversity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

García Molinos, Jorge; Halpern, Benjamin S.; Schoeman, David S.; Brown, Christopher J.; Kiessling, Wolfgang; Moore, Pippa J.; Pandolfi, John M.; Poloczanska, Elvira S.; Richardson, Anthony J.; Burrows, Michael T.

2016-01-01

Anticipating the effect of climate change on biodiversity, in particular on changes in community composition, is crucial for adaptive ecosystem management but remains a critical knowledge gap. Here, we use climate velocity trajectories, together with information on thermal tolerances and habitat preferences, to project changes in global patterns of marine species richness and community composition under IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. Our simple, intuitive approach emphasizes climate connectivity, and enables us to model over 12 times as many species as previous studies. We find that range expansions prevail over contractions for both RCPs up to 2100, producing a net local increase in richness globally, and temporal changes in composition, driven by the redistribution rather than the loss of diversity. Conversely, widespread invasions homogenize present-day communities across multiple regions. High extirpation rates are expected regionally (for example, Indo-Pacific), particularly under RCP8.5, leading to strong decreases in richness and the anticipated formation of no-analogue communities where invasions are common. The spatial congruence of these patterns with contemporary human impacts highlights potential areas of future conservation concern. These results strongly suggest that the millennial stability of current global marine diversity patterns, against which conservation plans are assessed, will change rapidly over the course of the century in response to ocean warming.

Estimation of biogeochemical climate regulation services in Chinese forest ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Y.; Li, S.

2016-12-01

As the global climate is changing, the climate regulation service of terrestrial ecosystem has been widely studied. Forests, as one of the most important terrestrial ecosystem types, is the biggest carbon pool or sink on land and can regulate climate through both biophysical and biogeochemical means. China is a country with vast forested areas and a variety of forest ecosystems types. Although current studies have related the climate regulation service of forest in China with biophysical or biogeochemical mechanism, there is still a lack of quantitative estimation of climate regulation services, especially for the biogeochemical climate regulation service. The GHGV (greenhouse gas value) is an indicator that can quantify the biochemical climate regulation service using ecosystems' stored organic matter, annual greenhouse gas flux, and potential greenhouse gas exchange rates during disturbances over a multiple year time frame. Therefore, we used GHGV to estimate the contribution of China's ten main forest types to biogeochemical climate regulation and generate the pattern of biochemical climate regulation service in Chinese forest ecosystems.

Vulnerability of the global terrestrial ecosystems to climate change.

PubMed

Li, Delong; Wu, Shuyao; Liu, Laibao; Zhang, Yatong; Li, Shuangcheng

2018-05-27

Climate change has far-reaching impacts on ecosystems. Recent attempts to quantify such impacts focus on measuring exposure to climate change but largely ignore ecosystem resistance and resilience, which may also affect the vulnerability outcomes. In this study, the relative vulnerability of global terrestrial ecosystems to short-term climate variability was assessed by simultaneously integrating exposure, sensitivity, and resilience at a high spatial resolution (0.05°). The results show that vulnerable areas are currently distributed primarily in plains. Responses to climate change vary among ecosystems and deserts and xeric shrublands are the most vulnerable biomes. Global vulnerability patterns are determined largely by exposure, while ecosystem sensitivity and resilience may exacerbate or alleviate external climate pressures at local scales; there is a highly significant negative correlation between exposure and sensitivity. Globally, 61.31% of the terrestrial vegetated area is capable of mitigating climate change impacts and those areas are concentrated in polar regions, boreal forests, tropical rainforests, and intact forests. Under current sensitivity and resilience conditions, vulnerable areas are projected to develop in high Northern Hemisphere latitudes in the future. The results suggest that integrating all three aspects of vulnerability (exposure, sensitivity, and resilience) may offer more comprehensive and spatially explicit adaptation strategies to reduce the impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Evidence and implications of recent and projected climate change in Alaska's forest ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wolken, Jane M.; Hollingsworth, Teresa N.; Rupp, T. Scott; Chapin, Stuart III; Trainor, Sarah F.; Barrett, Tara M.; Sullivan, Patrick F.; McGuire, A. David; Euskirchen, Eugénie S.; Hennon, Paul E.; Beever, Erik A.; Conn, Jeff S.; Crone, Lisa K.; D'Amore, David V.; Fresco, Nancy; Hanley, Thomas A.; Kielland, Knut; Kruse, James J.; Patterson, Trista; Schuur, Edward A.G.; Verbyla, David L.; Yarie, John

2011-01-01

The structure and function of Alaska's forests have changed significantly in response to a changing climate, including alterations in species composition and climate feedbacks (e.g., carbon, radiation budgets) that have important regional societal consequences and human feedbacks to forest ecosystems. In this paper we present the first comprehensive synthesis of climate-change impacts on all forested ecosystems of Alaska, highlighting changes in the most critical biophysical factors of each region. We developed a conceptual framework describing climate drivers, biophysical factors and types of change to illustrate how the biophysical and social subsystems of Alaskan forests interact and respond directly and indirectly to a changing climate. We then identify the regional and global implications to the climate system and associated socio-economic impacts, as presented in the current literature. Projections of temperature and precipitation suggest wildfire will continue to be the dominant biophysical factor in the Interior-boreal forest, leading to shifts from conifer- to deciduous-dominated forests. Based on existing research, projected increases in temperature in the Southcentral- and Kenai-boreal forests will likely increase the frequency and severity of insect outbreaks and associated wildfires, and increase the probability of establishment by invasive plant species. In the Coastal-temperate forest region snow and ice is regarded as the dominant biophysical factor. With continued warming, hydrologic changes related to more rapidly melting glaciers and rising elevation of the winter snowline will alter discharge in many rivers, which will have important consequences for terrestrial and marine ecosystem productivity. These climate-related changes will affect plant species distribution and wildlife habitat, which have regional societal consequences, and trace-gas emissions and radiation budgets, which are globally important. Our conceptual framework facilitates

A Decade in Climate Changes and Marine Fisheries: Assessing the Catchment Volume in Peninsular Malaysia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kamal, A. H. M.

2016-12-01

Global climate change variations over the past 30 years have produced numerous impacts in the abundance and production performance of marine fish and fisheries worldwide. The consequences in terms of flooding of low-lying estuarine habitats due to over rainfall, fluctuation of temperature, dilution of water parameters, devastation of feeding and breeding habitats, salinity fluctuations and acidification of waters, high siltation in coastal area, changes in the sea water table and breeding triggers have raised serious concerns for the well-being of marine fisheries and their production. This study shows that the overall total catchment of marine fisheries was decreased 38% in 2009 compared to 1998 while considers the fishing gears and vessels number used in Peninsular Malaysia. Registered vessels number was increased up to 92% in 2009 compared to 1998 which eventually increased the total catchment volume of marine fisheries. In 2009, the catching efforts and performance was far low as per vessels compared to 1998. Analysis of climate change variables shows that temperature was decreased as rainfall was increased within the year from 1998 to 2009. However, it is still early to conclude that whether climate change variables could have unpleasant impacts on fish production in the tropical seas like Malaysia. In spite of that it is predicted that the prolong exists of monsoon and increases of rainfall in this area resulting the stresses and sometimes interfering on the habitat, reproductive cycle and their related ecosystems in this coastal marine environment in tropics.

Assessing the trophic position and ecological role of squids in marine ecosystems by means of food-web models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coll, Marta; Navarro, Joan; Olson, Robert J.; Christensen, Villy

2013-10-01

We synthesized available information from ecological models at local and regional scales to obtain a global picture of the trophic position and ecological role of squids in marine ecosystems. First, static food-web models were used to analyze basic ecological parameters and indicators of squids: biomass, production, consumption, trophic level, omnivory index, predation mortality diet, and the ecological role. In addition, we developed various dynamic temporal simulations using two food-web models that included squids in their parameterization, and we investigated potential impacts of fishing pressure and environmental conditions for squid populations and, consequently, for marine food webs. Our results showed that squids occupy a large range of trophic levels in marine food webs and show a large trophic width, reflecting the versatility in their feeding behaviors and dietary habits. Models illustrated that squids are abundant organisms in marine ecosystems, and have high growth and consumption rates, but these parameters are highly variable because squids are adapted to a large variety of environmental conditions. Results also show that squids can have a large trophic impact on other elements of the food web, and top-down control from squids to their prey can be high. In addition, some squid species are important prey of apical predators and may be keystone species in marine food webs. In fact, we found strong interrelationships between neritic squids and the populations of their prey and predators in coastal and shelf areas, while the role of squids in open ocean and upwelling ecosystems appeared more constrained to a bottom-up impact on their predators. Therefore, large removals of squids will likely have large-scale effects on marine ecosystems. In addition, simulations confirm that squids are able to benefit from a general increase in fishing pressure, mainly due to predation release, and quickly respond to changes triggered by the environment. Squids may thus

Archaeology Meets Marine Ecology: The Antiquity of Maritime Cultures and Human Impacts on Marine Fisheries and Ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erlandson, Jon M.; Rick, Torben C.

2010-01-01

Interdisciplinary study of coastal archaeological sites provides a wealth of information on the ecology and evolution of ancient marine animal populations, the structure of past marine ecosystems, and the history of human impacts on coastal fisheries. In this paper, we review recent methodological developments in the archaeology and historical ecology of coastal regions around the world. Using two case studies, we examine (a) a deep history of anthropogenic effects on the marine ecosystems of California's Channel Islands through the past 12,000 years and (b) geographic variation in the effects of human fishing on Pacific Island peoples who spread through Oceania during the late Holocene. These case studies—the first focused on hunter-gatherers, the second on maritime horticulturalists—provide evidence for shifting baselines and timelines, documenting a much deeper anthropogenic influence on many coastal ecosystems and fisheries than considered by most ecologists, conservation biologists, and fisheries managers.

Archaeology meets marine ecology: the antiquity of maritime cultures and human impacts on marine fisheries and ecosystems.

PubMed

Erlandson, Jon M; Rick, Torben C

2010-01-01

Interdisciplinary study of coastal archaeological sites provides a wealth of information on the ecology and evolution of ancient marine animal populations, the structure of past marine ecosystems, and the history of human impacts on coastal fisheries. In this paper, we review recent methodological developments in the archaeology and historical ecology of coastal regions around the world. Using two case studies, we examine (a) a deep history of anthropogenic effects on the marine ecosystems of California's Channel Islands through the past 12,000 years and (b) geographic variation in the effects of human fishing on Pacific Island peoples who spread through Oceania during the late Holocene. These case studies--the first focused on hunter-gatherers, the second on maritime horticulturalists-provide evidence for shifting baselines and timelines, documenting a much deeper anthropogenic influence on many coastal ecosystems and fisheries than considered by most ecologists, conservation biologists, and fisheries managers.

Characterizing driver-response relationships in marine pelagic ecosystems for improved ocean management.

PubMed

Hunsicker, Mary E; Kappel, Carrie V; Selkoe, Kimberly A; Halpern, Benjamin S; Scarborough, Courtney; Mease, Lindley; Amrhein, Alisan

2016-04-01

Scientists and resource managers often use methods and tools that assume ecosystem components respond linearly to environmental drivers and human stressors. However, a growing body of literature demonstrates that many relationships are-non-linear, where small changes in a driver prompt a disproportionately large ecological response. We aim to provide a comprehensive assessment of the relationships between drivers and ecosystem components to identify where and when non-linearities are likely to occur. We focused our analyses on one of the best-studied marine systems, pelagic ecosystems, which allowed us to apply robust statistical techniques on a large pool of previously published studies. In this synthesis, we (1) conduct a wide literature review on single driver-response relationships in pelagic systems, (2) use statistical models to identify the degree of non-linearity in these relationships, and (3) assess whether general patterns exist in the strengths and shapes of non-linear relationships across drivers. Overall we found that non-linearities are common in pelagic ecosystems, comprising at least 52% of all driver-response relation- ships. This is likely an underestimate, as papers with higher quality data and analytical approaches reported non-linear relationships at a higher frequency (on average 11% more). Consequently, in the absence of evidence for a linear relationship, it is safer to assume a relationship is non-linear. Strong non-linearities can lead to greater ecological and socioeconomic consequences if they are unknown (and/or unanticipated), but if known they may provide clear thresholds to inform management targets. In pelagic systems, strongly non-linear relationships are often driven by climate and trophodynamic variables but are also associated with local stressors, such as overfishing and pollution, that can be more easily controlled by managers. Even when marine resource managers cannot influence ecosystem change, they can use information

The developing framework of marine ecotoxicology: Pollutants as a variable in marine ecosystems?

USGS Publications Warehouse

Luoma, Samuel N.

1996-01-01

Marine ecosystems include a subset in which at least some interrelated geochemical, biochemical, physiological, population and community characteristics are changed by pollutants. Moderate contamination is relatively widespread in coastal and estuarine ecosystems, so the subset of ecosystems with at least some processes affected could be relatively large. Pollutant influences have changed and will probably continue to change on time scales of decades. Biological exposures and dose in such ecosystems are species-specific and determined by how the species is exposed to different environmental media and the geochemistry of individual pollutants within those media. Bioaccumulation models offer significant promise for interpreting such exposures. Biological responses to pollutants need to be more directly linked to exposure and dose. At the level of the individual this might be improved by better understanding relationships between tissue concentrations of pollutants and responses to pollutants. Multi-discipline field and laboratory studies combined with advanced understanding of some basic processes have reduced the ambiguities in interpreting a few physiological/organismic responses to pollutants in nature. Recognition of pollutant-induced patterns in population responses could lead to similar advances. A rational framework for ecotoxicology is developing, but its further advance is dependent upon better integration of ecotoxicology with basic marine ecology and biology.

Soil ecosystem functioning under climate change: plant species and community effects

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kardol, Paul; Cregger, Melissa; Campany, Courtney E

2010-01-01

Feedbacks of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change depend on soil ecosystem dynamics. Soil ecosystems can directly and indirectly respond to climate change. For example, warming directly alters microbial communities by increasing their activity. Climate change may also alter plant community composition, thus indirectly altering the microbial communities that feed on their inputs. To better understand how climate change may directly and indirectly alter soil ecosystem functioning, we investigated old-field plant community and soil ecosystem responses to single and combined effects of elevated [CO2], warming, and water availability. Specifically, we collected soils at the plot level (plant community soils), and beneathmore » dominant plant species (plant-specific soils). We used microbial enzyme activities and soil nematodes as indicators for soil ecosystem functioning. Our study resulted in two main findings: 1) Overall, while there were some interactions, water, relative to increases in [CO2] and warming, had the largest impact on plant community composition, soil enzyme activities, and soil nematodes. Multiple climate change factors can interact to shape ecosystems, but in this case, those interactions were largely driven by changes in water availability. 2) Indirect effects of climate change, via changes in plant communities, had a significant impact on soil ecosystem functioning and this impact was not obvious when looking at plant community soils. Climate change effects on enzyme activities and soil nematode abundance and community structure strongly differed between plant community soils and plant-specific soils, but also within plant-specific soils. In sum, these results indicate that accurate assessments of climate change impacts on soil ecosystem functioning require incorporating the concurrent changes in plant function and plant community composition. Climate change-induced shifts in plant community composition will likely modify or counteract the

Projected timing of perceivable changes in climate extremes for terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Tan, Xuezhi; Gan, Thian Yew; Horton, Daniel E

2018-05-26

Human and natural systems have adapted to and evolved within historical climatic conditions. Anthropogenic climate change has the potential to alter these conditions such that onset of unprecedented climatic extremes will outpace evolutionary and adaptive capabilities. To assess whether and when future climate extremes exceed their historical windows of variability within impact-relevant socioeconomic, geopolitical, and ecological domains, we investigate the timing of perceivable changes (time of emergence; TOE) for 18 magnitude-, frequency-, and severity-based extreme temperature (10) and precipitation (8) indices using both multimodel and single-model multirealization ensembles. Under a high-emission scenario, we find that the signal of frequency- and severity-based temperature extremes is projected to rise above historical noise earliest in midlatitudes, whereas magnitude-based temperature extremes emerge first in low and high latitudes. Precipitation extremes demonstrate different emergence patterns, with severity-based indices first emerging over midlatitudes, and magnitude- and frequency-based indices emerging earliest in low and high latitudes. Applied to impact-relevant domains, simulated TOE patterns suggest (a) unprecedented consecutive dry day occurrence in >50% of 14 terrestrial biomes and 12 marine realms prior to 2100, (b) earlier perceivable changes in climate extremes in countries with lower per capita GDP, and (c) emergence of severe and frequent heat extremes well-before 2030 for the 590 most populous urban centers. Elucidating extreme-metric and domain-type TOE heterogeneities highlights the challenges adaptation planners face in confronting the consequences of elevated twenty-first century radiative forcing. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

An integrated approach to manage coastal ecosystems and prevent marine pollution effects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marcelli, Marco; Bonamano, Simone; Carli, Filippo Maria; Giovacchini, Monica; Madonia, Alice; Mancini, Emanuele; Molino, Chiara; Piermattei, Viviana; Manfredi Frattarelli, Francesco

2016-04-01

This work focuses an integrated approach based on Sea-Use-Map (SUM), backed by a permanent monitoring system (C-CEMS-Civitavecchia Coastal Environmental Monitoring System). This tool supports the management of the marine coastal area, contributing substantially to ecosystem benefits evaluation and to minimize pollution impacts. Within the Blue Growth strategy, the protection of marine ecosystems is considered a priority for the sustainable growth of marine and maritime sectors. To face this issue, the European MSP and MSFD directives (2014/89/EU; 2008/56/EC) strongly promote the adoption of an ecosystem-based approach, paying particular attention to the support of monitoring networks that use L-TER (long-term ecological research) observations and integrate multi-disciplinary data sets. Although not largely used in Europe yet, the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI), developed in 1979 by NOAA (and promoted by IMO in 2010), can be considered an excellent example of ecosystem-based approach to reduce the environmental consequences of an oil spill event in a coastal area. SUM is an ecosystem oriented cartographic tool specifically designed to support the sustainable management of the coastal areas, such as the selection of the best sites for the introduction of new uses or the identification of the coastal areas subjected to potential impacts. It also enables a rapid evaluation of the benefits produced by marine areas as well as of their anthropogenic disturbance. SUM integrates C-CEMS dataset, geomorphological and ecological features and knowledge on the coastal and maritime space uses. The SUM appliance allowed to obtain relevant operational results in the Civitavecchia coastal area (Latium, Italy), characterized by high variability of marine and coastal environments, historical heritage and affected by the presence of a big harbour, relevant industrial infrastructures, and touristic features. In particular, the valuation of marine ecosystem services based on

Climate, carbon cycling, and deep-ocean ecosystems.

PubMed

Smith, K L; Ruhl, H A; Bett, B J; Billett, D S M; Lampitt, R S; Kaufmann, R S

2009-11-17

Climate variation affects surface ocean processes and the production of organic carbon, which ultimately comprises the primary food supply to the deep-sea ecosystems that occupy approximately 60% of the Earth's surface. Warming trends in atmospheric and upper ocean temperatures, attributed to anthropogenic influence, have occurred over the past four decades. Changes in upper ocean temperature influence stratification and can affect the availability of nutrients for phytoplankton production. Global warming has been predicted to intensify stratification and reduce vertical mixing. Research also suggests that such reduced mixing will enhance variability in primary production and carbon export flux to the deep sea. The dependence of deep-sea communities on surface water production has raised important questions about how climate change will affect carbon cycling and deep-ocean ecosystem function. Recently, unprecedented time-series studies conducted over the past two decades in the North Pacific and the North Atlantic at >4,000-m depth have revealed unexpectedly large changes in deep-ocean ecosystems significantly correlated to climate-driven changes in the surface ocean that can impact the global carbon cycle. Climate-driven variation affects oceanic communities from surface waters to the much-overlooked deep sea and will have impacts on the global carbon cycle. Data from these two widely separated areas of the deep ocean provide compelling evidence that changes in climate can readily influence deep-sea processes. However, the limited geographic coverage of these existing time-series studies stresses the importance of developing a more global effort to monitor deep-sea ecosystems under modern conditions of rapidly changing climate.

Marine Biogeochemistry Under The Influence of Fish And Fisheries: An Ecosystem Modeling Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Disa, Deniz; Akoglu, Ekin; Salihoglu, Baris

2017-04-01

The ocean and the marine ecosystems are important controllers of the global carbon cycle. They play a pivotal role in capturing atmospheric carbon into the ocean body, transforming it into organic carbon through photosynthesis and transporting it to the depths of the ocean. Fish, which has a significant role in the marine food webs, is thought to have a considerable impact on carbon export. More specifically, fish has a control on plankton dynamics as a predator, it provides nutrient to the ecosystem by its metabolic activities and it has the ability of moving actively and transporting materials. Fishing is also expected to impact carbon cycle because it directly changes the fish biomasses. However, how fish impacts the biogeochemistry of marine ecosystems is not studied extensively. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of fish and fisheries on marine biogeochemical processes by setting up an end-to-end model, which simulates lower and higher tropic levels of marine ecosystems simultaneously. For this purpose, a one dimensional biogeochemical model simulating lower tropic level dynamics (e.g. carbon export, nutrient cycles) and an food web model simulating fisheries exploitation and higher tropic level dynamics were online and two-way coupled. Representing the marine ecosystem from one end to the other, the coupled model served as a tool for the analysis of fishing impacts on marine biogeochemical dynamics. Results obtained after incorporation of higher trophic level model changed the plankton compositions and enhanced detritus pools and increased carbon export. Additionally, our model showed that active movement of fish contributed to transport of carbon from surface to the deeper parts of the ocean. Moreover, results after applying different fishing intensities indicated that changes in fisheries exploitation levels directly influence the marine nutrient cycles and hence, the carbon export. Depending on the target and the intensity of fisheries

Bubble Stripping as a Tool to Reduce High Dissolved CO2 in Coastal Marine Ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koweek, D.; Mucciarone, D. A.; Dunbar, R. B.

2016-02-01

High dissolved CO2 concentrations in coastal ecosystems are a common occurrence due to a combination of large ecosystem metabolism and long residence times. Many of the socially, commercially, and recreationally important species may have adapted to this natural variability over time. However, eutrophication and ocean acidification may be perturbing the water chemistry beyond the bounds of tolerance for these organisms. We are currently limited in our ability to deal with the geochemical changes unfolding in our coastal ocean. This study helps to address this deficit of solutions by introducing bubble stripping as a novel geochemical engineering approach to reducing high CO2 in coastal marine ecosystems. We use an empirically validated numerical model to find that air/sea gas exchange rates within a bubbled system are 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than within a non-bubbled system. By coupling bubbling-enhanced ventilation to a coastal ecosystem metabolism model, we demonstrate that strategically timed bubble plumes can mitigate exposure to high CO2 under present-day conditions and that exposure mitigation is enhanced in the more acidic conditions predicted by the end of the century. The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emphasizes the need to both adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change and ocean acidification. We believe shallow water bubble stripping could be one approach for reducing high CO2 conditions in coastal ecosystems and should be added to the growing list of engineering approaches intended to increase coastal resilience in a changing ocean.

Soil ecosystem functioning under climate change: plant species and community effects.

PubMed

Kardol, Paul; Cregger, Melissa A; Campany, Courtney E; Classen, Aimee T

2010-03-01

Feedbacks of terrestrial ecosystems to atmospheric and climate change depend on soil ecosystem dynamics. Soil ecosystems can directly and indirectly respond to climate change. For example, warming directly alters microbial communities by increasing their activity. Climate change may also alter plant community composition, thus indirectly altering the soil communities that depend on their inputs. To better understand how climate change may directly and indirectly alter soil ecosystem functioning, we investigated old-field plant community and soil ecosystem responses to single and combined effects of elevated [CO2], warming, and precipitation in Tennessee (USA). Specifically, we collected soils at the plot level (plant community soils) and beneath dominant plant species (plant-specific soils). We used microbial enzyme activities and soil nematodes as indicators for soil ecosystem functioning. Our study resulted in two main findings: (1) Overall, while there were some interactions, water, relative to increases in [CO2] and warming, had the largest impact on plant community composition, soil enzyme activity, and soil nematodes. Multiple climate-change factors can interact to shape ecosystems, but in our study, those interactions were largely driven by changes in water. (2) Indirect effects of climate change, via changes in plant communities, had a significant impact on soil ecosystem functioning, and this impact was not obvious when looking at plant community soils. Climate-change effects on enzyme activities and soil nematode abundance and community structure strongly differed between plant community soils and plant-specific soils, but also within plant-specific soils. These results indicate that accurate assessments of climate-change impacts on soil ecosystem functioning require incorporating the concurrent changes in plant function and plant community composition. Climate-change-induced shifts in plant community composition will likely modify or counteract the

Squid as nutrient vectors linking Southwest Atlantic marine ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arkhipkin, Alexander I.

2013-10-01

Long-term investigations of three abundant nektonic squid species from the Southwest Atlantic, Illex argentinus, Doryteuthis gahi and Onykia ingens, permitted to estimate important population parameters including individual growth rates, duration of ontogenetic phases and mortalities. Using production model, the productivity of squid populations at different phases of their life cycle was assessed and the amount of biomass they convey between marine ecosystems as a result of their ontogenetic migrations was quantified. It was found that squid are major nutrient vectors and play a key role as transient 'biological pumps' linking spatially distinct marine ecosystems. I. argentinus has the largest impact in all three ecosystems it encounters due to its high abundance and productivity. The variable nature of squid populations increases the vulnerability of these biological conveyers to overfishing and environmental change. Failure of these critical biological pathways may induce irreversible long-term consequences for biodiversity, resource abundance and spatial availability in the world ocean.

Impacts of Climate Change on Ecosystem Services

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Ecosystems, and the biodiversity and services they support, are intrinsically dependent on climate. During the twentieth century, climate change has had documented impacts on ecological systems, and impacts are expected to increase as climate change continues and perhaps even accelerates. This techn...

Characterizing Vegetation Model Skill and Uncertainty in Simulated Ecosystem Response to Climate Change in the United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Drapek, R. J.; Kim, J. B.

2013-12-01

We simulated ecosystem response to climate change in the USA and Canada at a 5 arc-minute grid resolution using the MC1 dynamic global vegetation model and nine CMIP3 future climate projections as input. The climate projections were produced by 3 GCMs simulating 3 SRES emissions scenarios. We examined MC1 outputs for the conterminous USA by summarizing them by EPA level II and III ecoregions to characterize model skill and evaluate the magnitude and uncertainties of simulated ecosystem response to climate change. First, we evaluated model skill by comparing outputs from the recent historical period with benchmark datasets. Distribution of potential natural vegetation simulated by MC1 was compared with Kuchler's map. Above ground live carbon simulated by MC1 was compared with the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset. Fire return intervals calculated by MC1 were compared with maximum and minimum values compiled for the United States. Each EPA Level III Ecoregion was scored for average agreement with corresponding benchmark data and an average score was calculated for all three types of output. Greatest agreement with benchmark data happened in the Western Cordillera, the Ozark / Ouachita-Appalachian Forests, and the Southeastern USA Plains (EPA Level II Ecoregions). The lowest agreement happened in the Everglades and the Tamaulipas-Texas Semiarid Plain. For simulated ecosystem response to future climate projections we examined MC1 output for shifts in vegetation type, vegetation carbon, runoff, and biomass consumed by fire. Each ecoregion was scored for the amount of change from historical conditions for each variable and an average score was calculated. Smallest changes were forecast for Western Cordillera and Marine West Coast Forest ecosystems. Largest changes were forecast for the Cold Deserts, the Mixed Wood Plains, and the Central USA Plains. By combining scores of model skill for the historical period for each EPA Level 3 Ecoregion with scores representing the

Climate change impacts on ecosystems and ecosystem services in the United States: Process and prospects for sustained assessment

USGS Publications Warehouse

Grimm, Nancy B.; Groffman, Peter M; Staudinger, Michelle D.; Tallis, Heather

2016-01-01

The third United States National Climate Assessment emphasized an evaluation of not just the impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems, but also the impacts of climate change on the benefits that people derive from nature, known as ecosystem services. The ecosystems, biodiversity, and ecosystem services component of the assessment largely drew upon the findings of a transdisciplinary workshop aimed at developing technical input for the assessment, involving participants from diverse sectors. A small author team distilled and synthesized this and hundreds of other technical input to develop the key findings of the assessment. The process of developing and ranking key findings hinged on identifying impacts that had particular, demonstrable effects on the U.S. public via changes in national ecosystem services. Findings showed that ecosystem services are threatened by the impacts of climate change on water supplies, species distributions and phenology, as well as multiple assaults on ecosystem integrity that, when compounded by climate change, reduce the capacity of ecosystems to buffer against extreme events. As ecosystems change, such benefits as water sustainability and protection from storms that are afforded by intact ecosystems are projected to decline across the continent due to climate change. An ongoing, sustained assessment that focuses on the co-production of actionable climate science will allow scientists from a range of disciplines to ascertain the capability of their forecasting models to project environmental and ecological change and link it to ecosystem services; additionally, an iterative process of evaluation, development of management strategies, monitoring, and reevaluation will increase the applicability and usability of the science by the U.S. public.

Unlocking the climate riddle in forested ecosystems

Treesearch

Greg C. Liknes; Christopher W. Woodall; Brian F. Walters; Sara A. Goeking

2012-01-01

Climate information is often used as a predictor in ecological studies, where temporal averages are typically based on climate normals (30-year means) or seasonal averages. While ensemble projections of future climate forecast a higher global average annual temperature, they also predict increased climate variability. It remains to be seen whether forest ecosystems...

High latitude changes in ice dynamics and their impact on polar marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Moline, Mark A; Karnovsky, Nina J; Brown, Zachary; Divoky, George J; Frazer, Thomas K; Jacoby, Charles A; Torres, Joseph J; Fraser, William R

2008-01-01

Polar regions have experienced significant warming in recent decades. Warming has been most pronounced across the Arctic Ocean Basin and along the Antarctic Peninsula, with significant decreases in the extent and seasonal duration of sea ice. Rapid retreat of glaciers and disintegration of ice sheets have also been documented. The rate of warming is increasing and is predicted to continue well into the current century, with continued impacts on ice dynamics. Climate-mediated changes in ice dynamics are a concern as ice serves as primary habitat for marine organisms central to the food webs of these regions. Changes in the timing and extent of sea ice impose temporal asynchronies and spatial separations between energy requirements and food availability for many higher trophic levels. These mismatches lead to decreased reproductive success, lower abundances, and changes in distribution. In addition to these direct impacts of ice loss, climate-induced changes also facilitate indirect effects through changes in hydrography, which include introduction of species from lower latitudes and altered assemblages of primary producers. Here, we review recent changes and trends in ice dynamics and the responses of marine ecosystems. Specifically, we provide examples of ice-dependent organisms and associated species from the Arctic and Antarctic to illustrate the impacts of the temporal and spatial changes in ice dynamics.

Reinvestigating an interval of the English Wealden (non-marine Lower Cretaceous): Integrated analysis for palaeoenvironmental and climate cyclicities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sames, Benjamin

2017-04-01

Although increasing over the last years, relatively few studies on changing palaeoenvironments and climate cycles in non-marine archives of the Cretaceous greenhouse Earth do exist. This is primarily a result of the nature of non-marine or terrestrial deposits - strong lateral facies change on local scales and the strong local to regional control of deposition - as well as the lack of high-resolution stratigraphy and correlations to the marine record. On the other hand, major advances in the refinements of the Cretaceous timescale now facilitate the correlation and dating of short-term sea-level records and their supposable relation to climate and/or tectonic events with appropriate resolution, i.e. on Milankovitch scales. Innovations and progress in non-marine bio-, magneto- and chemostratigraphy as well as growing data on Lower and Upper Cretaceous non-marine successions are promising towards approaches for supraregional correlation of these deposits and their appropriate correlation to the Cretaceous marine standard sections. However, convincing evidence for orbitally (climate) driven cyclicity in non-marine Lower Cretaceous deposits is thus far sparse. The non-marine Wealden deposits of England have been used eponymous for widely distributed similar Lower Cretaceous non-marine facies, and they are a 'classical' example for a Mesozoic non-marine succession for which depositional cycles have been suggested since the 1970s, including the famous ostracod 'faunicycles' by F.W. Anderson, but so far lack convincing analyses and remain to be tested. The project 'Lower Cretaceous Climate and Non-marine Stratigraphy (LCCNS)' funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) analyses a chosen interval of the English Wealden at the Clock House Brickworks pit (near Capel, Surrey, England, UK) for orbitally/climate driven cyclicities with an interdisciplinary methodology: micropalaeontology, sedimentology, and geochemistry. Ostracod (aquatic microcrustaceans with calcified shell

Adapting California’s ecosystems to a changing climate

USGS Publications Warehouse

Elizabeth Chornesky,; David Ackerly,; Paul Beier,; Frank Davis,; Flint, Lorraine E.; Lawler, Joshua J.; Moyle, Peter B.; Moritz, Max A.; Scoonover, Mary; Byrd, Kristin B.; Alvarez, Pelayo; Heller, Nicole E.; Micheli, Elisabeth; Weiss, Stuart

2017-01-01

Significant efforts are underway to translate improved understanding of how climate change is altering ecosystems into practical actions for sustaining ecosystem functions and benefits. We explore this transition in California, where adaptation and mitigation are advancing relatively rapidly, through four case studies that span large spatial domains and encompass diverse ecological systems, institutions, ownerships, and policies. The case studies demonstrate the context specificity of societal efforts to adapt ecosystems to climate change and involve applications of diverse scientific tools (e.g., scenario analyses, downscaled climate projections, ecological and connectivity models) tailored to specific planning and management situations (alternative energy siting, wetland management, rangeland management, open space planning). They illustrate how existing institutional and policy frameworks provide numerous opportunities to advance adaptation related to ecosystems and suggest that progress is likely to be greatest when scientific knowledge is integrated into collective planning and when supportive policies and financing enable action.

Evaluating and ranking the vulnerability of global marine ecosystems to anthropogenic threats.

PubMed

Halpern, Benjamin S; Selkoe, Kimberly A; Micheli, Fiorenza; Kappel, Carrie V

2007-10-01

Marine ecosystems are threatened by a suite of anthropogenic stressors. Mitigating multiple threats is a daunting task, particularly when funding constraints limit the number of threats that can be addressed. Threats are typically assessed and prioritized via expert opinion workshops that often leave no record of the rationale for decisions, making it difficult to update recommendations with new information. We devised a transparent, repeatable, and modifiable method for collecting expert opinion that describes and documents how threats affect marine ecosystems. Experts were asked to assess the functional impact, scale, and frequency of a threat to an ecosystem; the resistance and recovery time of an ecosystem to a threat; and the certainty of these estimates. To quantify impacts of 38 distinct anthropogenic threats on 23 marine ecosystems, we surveyed 135 experts from 19 different countries. Survey results showed that all ecosystems are threatened by at least nine threats and that nine ecosystems are threatened by >90% of existing threats. The greatest threats (highest impact scores) were increasing sea temperature, demersal destructive fishing, and point-source organic pollution. Rocky reef, coral reef, hard-shelf, mangrove, and offshore epipelagic ecosystems were identified as the most threatened. These general results, however, may be partly influenced by the specific expertise and geography of respondents, and should be interpreted with caution. This approach to threat analysis can identify the greatest threats (globally or locally), most widespread threats, most (or least) sensitive ecosystems, most (or least) threatened ecosystems, and other metrics of conservation value. Additionally, it can be easily modified, updated as new data become available, and scaled to local or regional settings, which would facilitate informed and transparent conservation priority setting.

Persistence of trophic hotspots and relation to human impacts within an upwelling marine ecosystem.

PubMed

Santora, Jarrod A; Sydeman, William J; Schroeder, Isaac D; Field, John C; Miller, Rebecca R; Wells, Brian K

2017-03-01

Human impacts (e.g., fishing, pollution, and shipping) on pelagic ecosystems are increasing, causing concerns about stresses on marine food webs. Maintaining predator-prey relationships through protection of pelagic hotspots is crucial for conservation and management of living marine resources. Biotic components of pelagic, plankton-based, ecosystems exhibit high variability in abundance in time and space (i.e., extreme patchiness), requiring investigation of persistence of abundance across trophic levels to resolve trophic hotspots. Using a 26-yr record of indicators for primary production, secondary (zooplankton and larval fish), and tertiary (seabirds) consumers, we show distributions of trophic hotspots in the southern California Current Ecosystem result from interactions between a strong upwelling center and a productive retention zone with enhanced nutrients, which concentrate prey and predators across multiple trophic levels. Trophic hotspots also overlap with human impacts, including fisheries extraction of coastal pelagic and groundfish species, as well as intense commercial shipping traffic. Spatial overlap of trophic hotspots with fisheries and shipping increases vulnerability of the ecosystem to localized depletion of forage fish, ship strikes on marine mammals, and pollution. This study represents a critical step toward resolving pelagic areas of high conservation interest for planktonic ecosystems and may serve as a model for other ocean regions where ecosystem-based management and marine spatial planning of pelagic ecosystems is warranted. © 2016 by the Ecological Society of America.

Deep time ocean hypoxia: The impact on Jurassic marine ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caswell, B. A.; Frid, C. L. J.

2016-02-01

In order to understand how the environment will change over the next 100-1000 years and how this will impact the biosphere we need long-term data from a range of scenarios. This long-term perspective can be achieved by looking at periods of comparable environmental change in Earth history. Two past periods of ocean deoxygenation, 150 and 183 million years ago, are compared: (1) a period of global climate change, analogous to that occurring today, and (2) a period of regional hypoxia associated with changing circulation and nutrient supply. Palaeoecological changes in populations, communities, and seafloor functioning were investigated using data spanning millions of years at high resolution (100s-1000s years). Large shifts in biodiversity, body-size and the population-size of the dominant benthic taxa occurred in response to ocean anoxia. Ecological change spanned multiple trophic levels and suggest that changes in primary productivity impacted macrobenthos and their pelagic predators resulting in biogeographic range shifts. Quantitative analyses of changes in biological traits and core ecosystem functions show changes in nutrient regeneration, food web dynamics, and benthic-pelagic coupling. During ocean deoxygenation Jurassic ecosystems showed functional resilience and redundancy, but ultimately functioning collapsed. Quantification of the relationships between ecological change and various proxies for palaeoenvironmental change show that both hypoxia and primary productivity were important drivers. Environmental thresholds for local ecosystem change are identified. The patterns of Jurassic ecosystem change share many similarities with present-day hypoxic systems. Critically, the recovery from global anoxia was very slow and connectivity, with potential sources of new recruits, was an important contributor to ecosystem recovery. This emphasises the risks of relying on patterns of short-term and small-scale resilience when managing modern marine systems.

Embedding ecosystem services into the Marine Strategy Framework Directive: Illustrated by eutrophication in the North Sea

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

O'Higgins, T. G.; Gilbert, A. J.

2014-03-01

The introduction of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) with its focus on an Ecosystem Approach places an emphasis on the human dimensions of environmental problems. Human activities may be the source of marine degradation, but may also be adversely affected should degradation compromise the provision of ecosystem services. The MSFD marks a shift away from management aiming to restore past, undegraded states toward management for Good Environmental Status (GEnS) based on delivery of marine goods and services. An example relating ecosystem services to criteria for Good Environmental Status is presented for eutrophication, a long recognised problem in many parts of Europe's seas and specifically targeted by descriptors for GEnS. Taking the North Sea as a case study the relationships between the eutrophication criteria of the MSFD and final and intermediate marine ecosystem services are examined. Ecosystem services are valued, where possible in monetary terms, in order to illustrate how eutrophication affects human welfare (economic externalities) through its multiple effects on ecosystem services.

Nonlinear ecosystem services response to groundwater availability under climate extremes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qiu, J.; Zipper, S. C.; Motew, M.; Booth, E.; Kucharik, C. J.; Steven, L. I.

2017-12-01

Depletion of groundwater has been accelerating at regional to global scales. Besides serving domestic, industrial and agricultural needs, in situ groundwater is also a key control on biological, physical and chemical processes across the critical zone, all of which underpin supply of ecosystem services essential for humanity. While there is a rich history of research on groundwater effects on subsurface and surface processes, understanding interactions, nonlinearity and feedbacks between groundwater and ecosystem services remain limited, and almost absent in the ecosystem service literature. Moreover, how climate extremes may alter groundwater effects on services is underexplored. In this research, we used a process-based ecosystem model (Agro-IBIS) to quantify groundwater effects on eight ecosystem services related to food, water and biogeochemical processes in an urbanizing agricultural watershed in the Midwest, USA. We asked: (1) Which ecosystem services are more susceptible to shallow groundwater influences? (2) Do effects of groundwater on ecosystem services vary under contrasting climate conditions (i.e., dry, wet and average)? (3) Where on the landscape are groundwater effects on ecosystem services most pronounced? (4) How do groundwater effects depend on water table depth? Overall, groundwater significantly impacted all services studied, with the largest effects on food production, water quality and quantity, and flood regulation services. Climate also mediated groundwater effects with the strongest effects occurring under dry climatic conditions. There was substantial spatial heterogeneity in groundwater effects across the landscape that is driven in part by spatial variations in water table depth. Most ecosystem services responded nonlinearly to groundwater availability, with most apparent groundwater effects occurring when the water table is shallower than a critical depth of 2.5-m. Our findings provide compelling evidence that groundwater plays a vital

Recreational impacts on the fauna of Australian coastal marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Hardiman, Nigel; Burgin, Shelley

2010-11-01

This paper reviews recent research into the ecological impacts of recreation and tourism on coastal marine fauna in Australia. Despite the high and growing importance of water-based recreation to the Australian economy, and the known fragility of many Australian ecosystems, there has been relatively limited research into the effects of marine tourism and recreation, infrastructure and activities, on aquatic resources. In this paper we have reviewed the ecological impacts on fauna that are caused by outdoor recreation (including tourism) in Australian coastal marine ecosystems. We predict that the single most potentially severe impact of recreation may be the introduction and/or dispersal of non-indigenous species of marine organisms by recreational vessels. Such introductions, together with other impacts due to human activities have the potential to increasingly degrade recreation destinations. In response, governments have introduced a wide range of legislative tools (e.g., impact assessment, protected area reservation) to manage the recreational industry. It would appear, however, that these instruments are not always appropriately applied. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Climate Regulation Services of Natural and Managed Ecosystems of the Americas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Anderson-Teixeira, K. J.; Snyder, P. K.; Twine, T. E.; Costa, M. H.; Cuadra, S.; DeLucia, E. H.

2011-12-01

Terrestrial ecosystems regulate climate through both biogeochemical mechanisms (greenhouse gas regulation) and biophysical mechanisms (regulation of water and energy). Land management therefore provides some of the most effective strategies for climate change mitigation. However, most policies aimed at climate protection through land management, including UNFCCC mechanisms and bioenergy sustainability standards, account only for biogeochemical climate services. By ignoring biophysical climate regulation services that in some cases offset the biogeochemical regulation services, these policies run the risk of failing to advance the best climate solutions. Quantifying the combined value of biogeochemical and biophysical climate regulation services remains an important challenge. Here, we use a combination of data synthesis and modeling to quantify how biogeochemical and biophysical effects combine to shape the climate regulation value (CRV) of 18 natural and managed ecosystem types across the Western Hemisphere. Natural ecosystems generally had higher CRVs than agroecosystems, largely driven by differences in biogeochemical services. Biophysical contributions ranged from minimal to dominant. They were highly variable in space and across ecosystem types, and their relative importance varied strongly with the spatio-temporal scale of analysis. Our findings pertain to current efforts to protect climate through land management. Specifically, they reinforce the importance of protecting tropical forests and recent findings that the climatic effects of bioenergy production may be somewhat more positive than previously estimated. Given that biophysical effects in some cases dominate, ensuring effective climate protection through land management requires consideration of combined biogeochemical and biophysical climate regulation services. While quantification of ecosystem climate services is necessarily complex, our CRV index serves as one potential approach to measure the

Simple rules can guide whether land- or ocean-based conservation will best benefit marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Saunders, Megan I; Bode, Michael; Atkinson, Scott; Klein, Carissa J; Metaxas, Anna; Beher, Jutta; Beger, Maria; Mills, Morena; Giakoumi, Sylvaine; Tulloch, Vivitskaia; Possingham, Hugh P

2017-09-01

Coastal marine ecosystems can be managed by actions undertaken both on the land and in the ocean. Quantifying and comparing the costs and benefits of actions in both realms is therefore necessary for efficient management. Here, we quantify the link between terrestrial sediment runoff and a downstream coastal marine ecosystem and contrast the cost-effectiveness of marine- and land-based conservation actions. We use a dynamic land- and sea-scape model to determine whether limited funds should be directed to 1 of 4 alternative conservation actions-protection on land, protection in the ocean, restoration on land, or restoration in the ocean-to maximise the extent of light-dependent marine benthic habitats across decadal timescales. We apply the model to a case study for a seagrass meadow in Australia. We find that marine restoration is the most cost-effective action over decadal timescales in this system, based on a conservative estimate of the rate at which seagrass can expand into a new habitat. The optimal decision will vary in different social-ecological contexts, but some basic information can guide optimal investments to counteract land- and ocean-based stressors: (1) marine restoration should be prioritised if the rates of marine ecosystem decline and expansion are similar and low; (2) marine protection should take precedence if the rate of marine ecosystem decline is high or if the adjacent catchment is relatively intact and has a low rate of vegetation decline; (3) land-based actions are optimal when the ratio of marine ecosystem expansion to decline is greater than 1:1.4, with terrestrial restoration typically the most cost-effective action; and (4) land protection should be prioritised if the catchment is relatively intact but the rate of vegetation decline is high. These rules of thumb illustrate how cost-effective conservation outcomes for connected land-ocean systems can proceed without complex modelling.

Simple rules can guide whether land- or ocean-based conservation will best benefit marine ecosystems

PubMed Central

Bode, Michael; Atkinson, Scott; Klein, Carissa J.; Metaxas, Anna; Beher, Jutta; Beger, Maria; Mills, Morena; Giakoumi, Sylvaine; Tulloch, Vivitskaia; Possingham, Hugh P.

2017-01-01

Coastal marine ecosystems can be managed by actions undertaken both on the land and in the ocean. Quantifying and comparing the costs and benefits of actions in both realms is therefore necessary for efficient management. Here, we quantify the link between terrestrial sediment runoff and a downstream coastal marine ecosystem and contrast the cost-effectiveness of marine- and land-based conservation actions. We use a dynamic land- and sea-scape model to determine whether limited funds should be directed to 1 of 4 alternative conservation actions—protection on land, protection in the ocean, restoration on land, or restoration in the ocean—to maximise the extent of light-dependent marine benthic habitats across decadal timescales. We apply the model to a case study for a seagrass meadow in Australia. We find that marine restoration is the most cost-effective action over decadal timescales in this system, based on a conservative estimate of the rate at which seagrass can expand into a new habitat. The optimal decision will vary in different social–ecological contexts, but some basic information can guide optimal investments to counteract land- and ocean-based stressors: (1) marine restoration should be prioritised if the rates of marine ecosystem decline and expansion are similar and low; (2) marine protection should take precedence if the rate of marine ecosystem decline is high or if the adjacent catchment is relatively intact and has a low rate of vegetation decline; (3) land-based actions are optimal when the ratio of marine ecosystem expansion to decline is greater than 1:1.4, with terrestrial restoration typically the most cost-effective action; and (4) land protection should be prioritised if the catchment is relatively intact but the rate of vegetation decline is high. These rules of thumb illustrate how cost-effective conservation outcomes for connected land–ocean systems can proceed without complex modelling. PMID:28877168

Globalization, marine regime shifts and the Soviet Union

PubMed Central

Österblom, Henrik; Folke, Carl

2015-01-01

Regime shifts have been observed in marine ecosystems around the world, with climate and fishing suggested as major drivers of such shifts. The global and regional dynamics of the climate system have been studied in this context, and efforts to develop an analogous understanding of fishing activities are developing. Here, we investigate the timing of pelagic marine regime shifts in relation to the emergence of regional and global fishing activities of the Soviet Union. Our investigation of official catch statistics reflects that the Soviet Union was a major fishing actor in all large marine ecosystems where regime shifts have been documented, including in ecosystems where overfishing has been established as a key driver of these changes (in the Baltic and Black Seas and the Scotian Shelf). Globalization of Soviet Union fishing activities pushed exploitation to radically new levels and triggered regional and global governance responses for improved management. Since then, exploitation levels have remained and increased with new actors involved. Based on our exploratory work, we propose that a deeper understanding of the role of global fishing actors is central for improved management of marine ecosystems.

Climate change affects marine fishes through the oxygen limitation of thermal tolerance.

PubMed

Pörtner, Hans O; Knust, Rainer

2007-01-05

A cause-and-effect understanding of climate influences on ecosystems requires evaluation of thermal limits of member species and of their ability to cope with changing temperatures. Laboratory data available for marine fish and invertebrates from various climatic regions led to the hypothesis that, as a unifying principle, a mismatch between the demand for oxygen and the capacity of oxygen supply to tissues is the first mechanism to restrict whole-animal tolerance to thermal extremes. We show in the eelpout, Zoarces viviparus, a bioindicator fish species for environmental monitoring from North and Baltic Seas (Helcom), that thermally limited oxygen delivery closely matches environmental temperatures beyond which growth performance and abundance decrease. Decrements in aerobic performance in warming seas will thus be the first process to cause extinction or relocation to cooler waters.

GLOBEC (Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics: Northwest Atlantic program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1991-01-01

The specific objective of the meeting was to plan an experiment in the Northwestern Atlantic to study the marine ecosystem and its role, together with that of climate and physical dynamics, in determining fisheries recruitment. The underlying focus of the GLOBEC initiative is to understand the marine ecosystem as it related to marine living resources and to understand how fluctuation in these resources are driven by climate change and exploitation. In this sense the goal is a solid scientific program to provide basic information concerning major fisheries stocks and the environment that sustains them. The plan is to attempt to reach this understanding through a multidisciplinary program that brings to bear new techniques as disparate as numerical fluid dynamic models of ocean circulation, molecular biology and modern acoustic imaging. The effort will also make use of the massive historical data sets on fisheries and the state of the climate in a coordinated manner.

Taking the pulse of mountains: Ecosystem responses to climatic variability

USGS Publications Warehouse

Fagre, Daniel B.; Peterson, David L.; Hessl, Amy E.

2003-01-01

An integrated program of ecosystem modeling and field studies in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest (U.S.A.) has quantified many of the ecological processes affected by climatic variability. Paleoecological and contemporary ecological data in forest ecosystems provided model parameterization and validation at broad spatial and temporal scales for tree growth, tree regeneration and treeline movement. For subalpine tree species, winter precipitation has a strong negative correlation with growth; this relationship is stronger at higher elevations and west-side sites (which have more precipitation). Temperature affects tree growth at some locations with respect to length of growing season (spring) and severity of drought at drier sites (summer). Furthermore, variable but predictable climate-growth relationships across elevation gradients suggest that tree species respond differently to climate at different locations, making a uniform response of these species to future climatic change unlikely. Multi-decadal variability in climate also affects ecosystem processes. Mountain hemlock growth at high-elevation sites is negatively correlated with winter snow depth and positively correlated with the winter Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index. At low elevations, the reverse is true. Glacier mass balance and fire severity are also linked to PDO. Rapid establishment of trees in subalpine ecosystems during this century is increasing forest cover and reducing meadow cover at many subalpine locations in the western U.S.A. and precipitation (snow depth) is a critical variable regulating conifer expansion. Lastly, modeling potential future ecosystem conditions suggests that increased climatic variability will result in increasing forest fire size and frequency, and reduced net primary productivity in drier, east-side forest ecosystems. As additional empirical data and modeling output become available, we will improve our ability to predict the effects of climatic change

Aquatic ecosystems in a changing climate

USGS Publications Warehouse

Inamdar, Shreeram; Shanley, James B.; McDowell, William H.

2017-01-01

Extreme climate events (ECEs) such as tropical storms and hurricanes, thunderstorms, heat waves, droughts, ice storms, and snow storms have increased and are projected to further increase in intensity and frequency across the world. These events are expected to have significant consequences for aquatic ecosystems with the potential for large changes in ecosystem processes, responses, and functions.

Integrating Climate and Ocean Change Vulnerability into Conservation Planning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mcleod, E.; Green, A.; Game, E.; Anthony, K.; Cinner, J.; Heron, S. F.; Kleypas, J. A.; Lovelock, C.; Pandolfi, J.; Pressey, B.; Salm, R.; Schill, S.; Woodroffe, C. D.

2013-05-01

Tropical coastal and marine ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to ocean warming, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise. Yet these projected climate and ocean change impacts are rarely considered in conservation planning due to the lack of guidance on how existing climate and ocean change models, tools, and data can be applied. We address this gap by describing how conservation planning can use available tools and data for assessing the vulnerability of tropical marine ecosystems to key climate threats. Additionally, we identify limitations of existing tools and provide recommendations for future research to improve integration of climate and ocean change information and conservation planning. Such information is critical for developing a conservation response that adequately protects these ecosystems and dependent coastal communities in the face of climate and ocean change.

Mismatch between marine plankton range movements and the velocity of climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chivers, William J.; Walne, Anthony W.; Hays, Graeme C.

2017-02-01

The response of marine plankton to climate change is of critical importance to the oceanic food web and fish stocks. We use a 60-year ocean basin-wide data set comprising >148,000 samples to reveal huge differences in range changes associated with climate change across 35 plankton taxa. While the range of dinoflagellates and copepods tended to closely track the velocity of climate change (the rate of isotherm movement), the range of the diatoms moved much more slowly. Differences in range shifts were up to 900 km in a recent warming period, with average velocities of range movement between 7 km per decade northwards for taxa exhibiting niche plasticity and 99 km per decade for taxa exhibiting niche conservatism. The differing responses of taxa to global warming will cause spatial restructuring of the plankton ecosystem with likely consequences for grazing pressures on phytoplankton and hence for biogeochemical cycling, higher trophic levels and biodiversity.

Nutrient supply and mercury dynamics in marine ecosystems: a conceptual model.

PubMed

Driscoll, Charles T; Chen, Celia Y; Hammerschmidt, Chad R; Mason, Robert P; Gilmour, Cynthia C; Sunderland, Elsie M; Greenfield, Ben K; Buckman, Kate L; Lamborg, Carl H

2012-11-01

There is increasing interest and concern over the impacts of mercury (Hg) inputs to marine ecosystems. One of the challenges in assessing these effects is that the cycling and trophic transfer of Hg are strongly linked to other contaminants and disturbances. In addition to Hg, a major problem facing coastal waters is the impacts of elevated nutrient, particularly nitrogen (N), inputs. Increases in nutrient loading alter coastal ecosystems in ways that should change the transport, transformations and fate of Hg, including increases in fixation of organic carbon and deposition to sediments, decreases in the redox status of sediments and changes in fish habitat. In this paper we present a conceptual model which suggests that increases in loading of reactive N to marine ecosystems might alter Hg dynamics, decreasing bioavailabilty and trophic transfer. This conceptual model is most applicable to coastal waters, but may also be relevant to the pelagic ocean. We present information from case studies that both support and challenge this conceptual model, including marine observations across a nutrient gradient; results of a nutrient-trophic transfer Hg model for pelagic and coastal ecosystems; observations of Hg species, and nutrients from coastal sediments in the northeastern U.S.; and an analysis of fish Hg concentrations in estuaries under different nutrient loadings. These case studies suggest that changes in nutrient loading can impact Hg dynamics in coastal and open ocean ecosystems. Unfortunately none of the case studies is comprehensive; each only addresses a portion of the conceptual model and has limitations. Nevertheless, our conceptual model has important management implications. Many estuaries near developed areas are impaired due to elevated nutrient inputs. Widespread efforts are underway to control N loading and restore coastal ecosystem function. An unintended consequence of nutrient control measures could be to exacerbate problems associated with Hg

Nutrient supply and mercury dynamics in marine ecosystems: A conceptual model

PubMed Central

Chen, Celia Y.; Hammerschmidt, Chad R.; Mason, Robert P.; Gilmour, Cynthia C.; Sunderland, Elsie M.; Greenfield, Ben K.; Buckman, Kate L.; Lamborg, Carl H.

2013-01-01

There is increasing interest and concern over the impacts of mercury (Hg) inputs to marine ecosystems. One of the challenges in assessing these effects is that the cycling and trophic transfer of Hg are strongly linked to other contaminants and disturbances. In addition to Hg, a major problem facing coastal waters is the impacts of elevated nutrient, particularly nitrogen (N), inputs. Increases in nutrient loading alter coastal ecosystems in ways that should change the transport, transformations and fate of Hg, including increases in fixation of organic carbon and deposition to sediments, decreases in the redox status of sediments and changes in fish habitat. In this paper we present a conceptual model which suggests that increases in loading of reactive N to marine ecosystems might alter Hg dynamics, decreasing bioavailabilty and trophic transfer. This conceptual model is most applicable to coastal waters, but may also be relevant to the pelagic ocean. We present information from case studies that both support and challenge this conceptual model, including marine observations across a nutrient gradient; results of a nutrient-trophic transfer Hg model for pelagic and coastal ecosystems; observations of Hg species, and nutrients from coastal sediments in the northeastern U.S.; and an analysis of fish Hg concentrations in estuaries under different nutrient loadings. These case studies suggest that changes in nutrient loading can impact Hg dynamics in coastal and open ocean ecosystems. Unfortunately none of the case studies is comprehensive; each only addresses a portion of the conceptual model and has limitations. Nevertheless, our conceptual model has important management implications. Many estuaries near developed areas are impaired due to elevated nutrient inputs. Widespread efforts are underway to control N loading and restore coastal ecosystem function. An unintended consequence of nutrient control measures could be to exacerbate problems associated with Hg

The Smithsonian-led Marine Global Earth Observatory (MarineGEO): Proposed Model for a Collaborative Network Linking Marine Biodiversity to Ecosystem Processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duffy, J. E.

2016-02-01

Biodiversity - the variety of functional types of organisms - is the engine of marine ecosystem processes, including productivity, nutrient cycling, and carbon sequestration. Biodiversity remains a black box in much of ocean science, despite wide recognition that effectively managing human interactions with marine ecosystems requires understanding both structure and functional consequences of biodiversity. Moreover, the inherent complexity of biological systems puts a premium on data-rich, comparative approaches, which are best met via collaborative networks. The Smithsonian Institution's MarineGEO program links a growing network of partners conducting parallel, comparative research to understand change in marine biodiversity and ecosystems, natural and anthropogenic drivers of that change, and the ecological processes mediating it. The focus is on nearshore, seabed-associated systems where biodiversity and human population are concentrated and interact most, yet which fall through the cracks of existing ocean observing programs. MarineGEO offers a standardized toolbox of research modules that efficiently capture key elements of biological diversity and its importance in ecological processes across a range of habitats. The toolbox integrates high-tech (DNA-based, imaging) and low-tech protocols (diver surveys, rapid assays of consumer activity) adaptable to differing institutional capacity and resources. The model for long-term sustainability involves leveraging in-kind support among partners, adoption of best practices wherever possible, engagement of students and citizen scientists, and benefits of training, networking, and global relevance as incentives for participation. Here I highlight several MarineGEO comparative research projects demonstrating the value of standardized, scalable assays and parallel experiments for measuring fish and invertebrate diversity, recruitment, benthic herbivory and generalist predation, decomposition, and carbon sequestration. Key

Climate change and ocean acidification effects on seagrasses and marine macroalgae.

PubMed

Koch, Marguerite; Bowes, George; Ross, Cliff; Zhang, Xing-Hai

2013-01-01

Although seagrasses and marine macroalgae (macro-autotrophs) play critical ecological roles in reef, lagoon, coastal and open-water ecosystems, their response to ocean acidification (OA) and climate change is not well understood. In this review, we examine marine macro-autotroph biochemistry and physiology relevant to their response to elevated dissolved inorganic carbon [DIC], carbon dioxide [CO2 ], and lower carbonate [CO3 (2-) ] and pH. We also explore the effects of increasing temperature under climate change and the interactions of elevated temperature and [CO2 ]. Finally, recommendations are made for future research based on this synthesis. A literature review of >100 species revealed that marine macro-autotroph photosynthesis is overwhelmingly C3 (≥ 85%) with most species capable of utilizing HCO3 (-) ; however, most are not saturated at current ocean [DIC]. These results, and the presence of CO2 -only users, lead us to conclude that photosynthetic and growth rates of marine macro-autotrophs are likely to increase under elevated [CO2 ] similar to terrestrial C3 species. In the tropics, many species live close to their thermal limits and will have to up-regulate stress-response systems to tolerate sublethal temperature exposures with climate change, whereas elevated [CO2 ] effects on thermal acclimation are unknown. Fundamental linkages between elevated [CO2 ] and temperature on photorespiration, enzyme systems, carbohydrate production, and calcification dictate the need to consider these two parameters simultaneously. Relevant to calcifiers, elevated [CO2 ] lowers net calcification and this effect is amplified by high temperature. Although the mechanisms are not clear, OA likely disrupts diffusion and transport systems of H(+) and DIC. These fluxes control micro-environments that promote calcification over dissolution and may be more important than CaCO3 mineralogy in predicting macroalgal responses to OA. Calcareous macroalgae are highly vulnerable to OA

Mammoth ecosystem: Climatic areal, animal's density and cause of extinctions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zimov, S.; Zimov, N.; Zimova, G.; Chapin, S. F.

2008-12-01

During the last glaciations Mammoth Ecosystem (ME) occupied territory from present-day France to Canada and from the Arctic islands to China. This ecosystem played major role in global carbon cycle and human settling around the planet. Causes of extinction of this ecosystem are debatable. Analyses of hundreds of radiocarbon dates of ME animal fossil remains showed that warming and moistening of climate wasn't accompanied by animal extinction. On the opposite, on the north right after the warming rise of herbivore population was observed. Reconstruction of ME climatic areal showed that its climatic optimum lies within range of annual precipitation of 200-350 mm and average summer temperatures of +8-+12oC which corresponds with modern climate of Northern Siberia. Analyses of bones and skeletons concentrations in permafrost of Northern Siberia showed that animal density in ME was similar to African savannah. That was a high productive ecosystem that could sustain in wide variety of climates because numerous herbivores maintained there pastures themselves.

Climate change and tropical marine agriculture.

PubMed

Crabbe, M James C

2009-01-01

The coral reef ecosystem forms part of a 'seascape' that includes land-based ecosystems such as mangroves and forests, and ideally should form a complete system for conservation and management. Aquaculture, including artisanal fishing for fish and invertebrates, shrimp farming, and seaweed farming, is a major part of the farming and gleaning practices of many tropical communities, particularly on small islands, and depends upon the integrity of the reefs. Climate change is making major impacts on these communities, not least through global warming and high CO(2) concentrations. Corals grow within very narrow limits of temperature, provide livelihoods for millions of people in tropical areas, and are under serious threat from a variety of environmental and climate extremes. Corals survive and grow through a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic algae: zooxanthellae. Such systems apply highly co-operative regulation to minimize the fluctuation of metabolite concentration profiles in the face of transient perturbations. This review will discuss research on how climate influences reef ecosystems, and how science can lead to conservation actions, with benefits for the human populations reliant on the reefs for their survival.

Challenges in integrative approaches to modelling the marine ecosystems of the North Atlantic: Physics to fish and coasts to ocean

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Holt, Jason; Icarus Allen, J.; Anderson, Thomas R.; Brewin, Robert; Butenschön, Momme; Harle, James; Huse, Geir; Lehodey, Patrick; Lindemann, Christian; Memery, Laurent; Salihoglu, Baris; Senina, Inna; Yool, Andrew

2014-12-01

It has long been recognised that there are strong interactions and feedbacks between climate, upper ocean biogeochemistry and marine food webs, and also that food web structure and phytoplankton community distribution are important determinants of variability in carbon production and export from the euphotic zone. Numerical models provide a vital tool to explore these interactions, given their capability to investigate multiple connected components of the system and the sensitivity to multiple drivers, including potential future conditions. A major driver for ecosystem model development is the demand for quantitative tools to support ecosystem-based management initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to review approaches to the modelling of marine ecosystems with a focus on the North Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent shelf seas, and to highlight the challenges they face and suggest ways forward. We consider the state of the art in simulating oceans and shelf sea physics, planktonic and higher trophic level ecosystems, and look towards building an integrative approach with these existing tools. We note how the different approaches have evolved historically and that many of the previous obstacles to harmonisation may no longer be present. We illustrate this with examples from the on-going and planned modelling effort in the Integrative Modelling Work Package of the EURO-BASIN programme.

Sensitivity of global terrestrial ecosystems to climate variability.

PubMed

Seddon, Alistair W R; Macias-Fauria, Marc; Long, Peter R; Benz, David; Willis, Kathy J

2016-03-10

The identification of properties that contribute to the persistence and resilience of ecosystems despite climate change constitutes a research priority of global relevance. Here we present a novel, empirical approach to assess the relative sensitivity of ecosystems to climate variability, one property of resilience that builds on theoretical modelling work recognizing that systems closer to critical thresholds respond more sensitively to external perturbations. We develop a new metric, the vegetation sensitivity index, that identifies areas sensitive to climate variability over the past 14 years. The metric uses time series data derived from the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) enhanced vegetation index, and three climatic variables that drive vegetation productivity (air temperature, water availability and cloud cover). Underlying the analysis is an autoregressive modelling approach used to identify climate drivers of vegetation productivity on monthly timescales, in addition to regions with memory effects and reduced response rates to external forcing. We find ecologically sensitive regions with amplified responses to climate variability in the Arctic tundra, parts of the boreal forest belt, the tropical rainforest, alpine regions worldwide, steppe and prairie regions of central Asia and North and South America, the Caatinga deciduous forest in eastern South America, and eastern areas of Australia. Our study provides a quantitative methodology for assessing the relative response rate of ecosystems--be they natural or with a strong anthropogenic signature--to environmental variability, which is the first step towards addressing why some regions appear to be more sensitive than others, and what impact this has on the resilience of ecosystem service provision and human well-being.

Marine mammal strandings and environmental changes: a 15-year study in the St. Lawrence ecosystem.

PubMed

Truchon, Marie-Hélène; Measures, Lena; L'Hérault, Vincent; Brêthes, Jean-Claude; Galbraith, Peter S; Harvey, Michel; Lessard, Sylvie; Starr, Michel; Lecomte, Nicolas

2013-01-01

Understanding the effects of climatic variability on marine mammals is challenging due to the complexity of ecological interactions. We used general linear models to analyze a 15-year database documenting marine mammal strandings (1994-2008; n = 1,193) and nine environmental parameters known to affect marine mammal survival, from regional (sea ice) to continental scales (North Atlantic Oscillation, NAO). Stranding events were more frequent during summer and fall than other seasons, and have increased since 1994. Poor ice conditions observed during the same period may have affected marine mammals either directly, by modulating the availability of habitat for feeding and breeding activities, or indirectly, through changes in water conditions and marine productivity (krill abundance). For most species (75%, n = 6 species), a low volume of ice was correlated with increasing frequency of stranding events (e.g. R(2)adj = 0.59, hooded seal, Cystophora cristata). This likely led to an increase in seal mortality during the breeding period, but also to increase habitat availability for seasonal migratory cetaceans using ice-free areas during winter. We also detected a high frequency of stranding events for mysticete species (minke whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and resident species (beluga, Delphinapterus leucas), correlated with low krill abundance since 1994. Positive NAO indices were positively correlated with high frequencies of stranding events for resident and seasonal migratory cetaceans, as well as rare species (R(2)adj = 0.53, 0.81 and 0.34, respectively). This contrasts with seal mass stranding numbers, which were negatively correlated with a positive NAO index. In addition, an unusual multiple species mortality event (n = 114, 62% of total annual mortality) in 2008 was caused by a harmful algal bloom. Our findings provide an empirical baseline in understanding marine mammal survival when faced with climatic variability. This is a promising

Marine Mammal Strandings and Environmental Changes: A 15-Year Study in the St. Lawrence Ecosystem

PubMed Central

Truchon, Marie-Hélène; Measures, Lena; L’Hérault, Vincent; Brêthes, Jean-Claude; Galbraith, Peter S.; Harvey, Michel; Lessard, Sylvie; Starr, Michel; Lecomte, Nicolas

2013-01-01

Understanding the effects of climatic variability on marine mammals is challenging due to the complexity of ecological interactions. We used general linear models to analyze a 15-year database documenting marine mammal strandings (1994–2008; n = 1,193) and nine environmental parameters known to affect marine mammal survival, from regional (sea ice) to continental scales (North Atlantic Oscillation, NAO). Stranding events were more frequent during summer and fall than other seasons, and have increased since 1994. Poor ice conditions observed during the same period may have affected marine mammals either directly, by modulating the availability of habitat for feeding and breeding activities, or indirectly, through changes in water conditions and marine productivity (krill abundance). For most species (75%, n = 6 species), a low volume of ice was correlated with increasing frequency of stranding events (e.g. R2 adj = 0.59, hooded seal, Cystophora cristata). This likely led to an increase in seal mortality during the breeding period, but also to increase habitat availability for seasonal migratory cetaceans using ice-free areas during winter. We also detected a high frequency of stranding events for mysticete species (minke whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and resident species (beluga, Delphinapterus leucas), correlated with low krill abundance since 1994. Positive NAO indices were positively correlated with high frequencies of stranding events for resident and seasonal migratory cetaceans, as well as rare species (R2 adj = 0.53, 0.81 and 0.34, respectively). This contrasts with seal mass stranding numbers, which were negatively correlated with a positive NAO index. In addition, an unusual multiple species mortality event (n = 114, 62% of total annual mortality) in 2008 was caused by a harmful algal bloom. Our findings provide an empirical baseline in understanding marine mammal survival when faced with climatic variability. This is a promising

Integrated ocean management as a strategy to meet rapid climate change: the Norwegian case.

PubMed

Hoel, Alf Håkon; Olsen, Erik

2012-02-01

The prospects of rapid climate change and the potential existence of tipping points in marine ecosystems where nonlinear change may result from them being overstepped, raises the question of strategies for coping with ecosystem change. There is broad agreement that the combined forces of climate change, pollution and increasing economic activities necessitates more comprehensive approaches to oceans management, centering on the concept of ecosystem-based oceans management. This article addresses the Norwegian experience in introducing integrated, ecosystem-based oceans management, emphasizing how climate change, seen as a major long-term driver of change in ecosystems, is addressed in management plans. Understanding the direct effects of climate variability and change on ecosystems and indirect effects on human activities is essential for adaptive planning to be useful in the long-term management of the marine environment.

Climate-driven range shifts of the king penguin in a fragmented ecosystem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cristofari, Robin; Liu, Xiaoming; Bonadonna, Francesco; Cherel, Yves; Pistorius, Pierre; Le Maho, Yvon; Raybaud, Virginie; Stenseth, Nils Christian; Le Bohec, Céline; Trucchi, Emiliano

2018-03-01

Range shift is the primary short-term species response to rapid climate change, but it is often hampered by natural or anthropogenic habitat fragmentation. Different critical areas of a species' niche may be exposed to heterogeneous environmental changes and modelling species response under such complex spatial and ecological scenarios presents well-known challenges. Here, we use a biophysical ecological niche model validated through population genomics and palaeodemography to reconstruct past range shifts and identify future vulnerable areas and potential refugia of the king penguin in the Southern Ocean. Integrating genomic and demographic data at the whole-species level with specific biophysical constraints, we present a refined framework for predicting the effect of climate change on species relying on spatially and ecologically distinct areas to complete their life cycle (for example, migratory animals, marine pelagic organisms and central-place foragers) and, in general, on species living in fragmented ecosystems.

Impacts of climate change on marine top predators: Advances and future challenges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hobday, Alistair J.; Arrizabalaga, Haritz; Evans, Karen; Nicol, Simon; Young, Jock W.; Weng, Kevin C.

2015-03-01

Oceanic top predators are the subject of studies by researchers under the international Climate Impacts on Oceanic Top Predators (CLIOTOP) program. A wide range of data sets have shown that environmental conditions, such as temperature and marine productivity, affect the distribution and biological processes of these species, and thus the activities of the humans that depend on them. In this special issue, 25 papers arising from the 2nd CLIOTOP symposium, held in Noumea, New Caledonia in February 2013 report the importance of realistic physical descriptions of oceanic processes for climate change projections, demonstrate a wide range of predator responses to historical climate variability, describe new analytical approaches for understanding the physiology, behaviour and trophodynamics, and project future distributions for a range of species. Several contributions discuss the implications for conservation and fisheries and show that resolving ecosystem management challenges and conflicts in the face of climate change is possible, but will require attention by decision-makers to issues that are broader than their traditional mandate. In the coming years, an increased focus on the development of management options to reduce the impacts of climate change on top predators and their dependent industries is needed.

Climate change: The 2015 Paris Agreement thresholds and Mediterranean basin ecosystems.

PubMed

Guiot, Joel; Cramer, Wolfgang

2016-10-28

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Agreement of December 2015 aims to maintain the global average warming well below 2°C above the preindustrial level. In the Mediterranean basin, recent pollen-based reconstructions of climate and ecosystem variability over the past 10,000 years provide insights regarding the implications of warming thresholds for biodiversity and land-use potential. We compare scenarios of climate-driven future change in land ecosystems with reconstructed ecosystem dynamics during the past 10,000 years. Only a 1.5°C warming scenario permits ecosystems to remain within the Holocene variability. At or above 2°C of warming, climatic change will generate Mediterranean land ecosystem changes that are unmatched in the Holocene, a period characterized by recurring precipitation deficits rather than temperature anomalies. Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

What did we learn from PEGASEAS forum "Science and Governance of the Channel Marine Ecosystem"?

PubMed

Evariste, Emmanuelle; Claquin, Pascal; Robin, Jean-Paul; Auber, Arnaud; McQuatters-Gollop, Abigail; Fletcher, Stephen; Glegg, Gillian; Dauvin, Jean-Claude

2015-04-15

As one of the busiest marine ecosystems in the world, the English Channel is subjected to strong pressures due to the human activities occurring within it. Effective governance is required to improve the combined management of different activities and so secure the benefits provided by the Channel ecosystem. In July 2014, a Cross-Channel Forum, entitled "Science and Governance of the Channel Marine Ecosystem", was held in Caen (France) as part of the INTERREG project "Promoting Effective Governance of the Channel Ecosystem" (PEGASEAS). Here we use outputs from the Forum as a framework for providing Channel-specific advice and recommendations on marine governance themes, including the identification of knowledge gaps, which may form the foundation of future projects for the next INTERREG project call (2015-2020). Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Large Marine Ecosystem Approach for 21st Century Ocean Health and International Sustainable Development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Honey, K. T.

2014-12-01

The global coastal ocean and watersheds are divided into 66 Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs), which encompass regions from river basins, estuaries, and coasts to the seaward boundaries of continental shelves and margins of major currents. Approximately 80% of global fisheries catch comes from LME waters. Ecosystem goods and services from LMEs contribute an estimated US 18-25 trillion dollars annually to the global economy in market and non-market value. The critical importance of these large-scale systems, however, is threatened by human populations and pressures, including climate change. Fortunately, there is pragmatic reason for optimism. Interdisciplinary frameworks exist, such as the Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) approach for adaptive management that can integrate both nature-centric and human-centric views into ecosystem monitoring, assessment, and adaptive management practices for long-term sustainability. Originally proposed almost 30 years ago, the LME approach rests on five modules are: (i) productivity, (ii) fish and fisheries, (iii) pollution and ecosystem health, (iv) socioeconomics, and (v) governance for iterative adaptive management at a large, international scale of 200,000 km2 or greater. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), World Bank, and United Nations agencies recognize and support the LME approach—as evidenced by over 3.15 billion in financial assistance to date for LME projects. This year of 2014 is an exciting milestone in LME history, after 20 years of the United Nations and GEF organizations adopting LMEs as a unit for ecosystem-based approaches to management. The LME approach, however, is not perfect. Nor is it immutable. Similar to the adaptive management framework it propones, the LME approach itself must adapt to new and emerging 21st Century technologies, science, and realities. The LME approach must further consider socioeconomics and governance. Within the socioeconomics module alone, several trillion-dollar opportunities exist

Combined fishing and climate forcing in the southern Benguela upwelling ecosystem: an end-to-end modelling approach reveals dampened effects.

PubMed

Travers-Trolet, Morgane; Shin, Yunne-Jai; Shannon, Lynne J; Moloney, Coleen L; Field, John G

2014-01-01

The effects of climate and fishing on marine ecosystems have usually been studied separately, but their interactions make ecosystem dynamics difficult to understand and predict. Of particular interest to management, the potential synergism or antagonism between fishing pressure and climate forcing is analysed in this paper, using an end-to-end ecosystem model of the southern Benguela ecosystem, built from coupling hydrodynamic, biogeochemical and multispecies fish models (ROMS-N2P2Z2D2-OSMOSE). Scenarios of different intensities of upwelling-favourable wind stress combined with scenarios of fishing top-predator fish were tested. Analyses of isolated drivers show that the bottom-up effect of the climate forcing propagates up the food chain whereas the top-down effect of fishing cascades down to zooplankton in unfavourable environmental conditions but dampens before it reaches phytoplankton. When considering both climate and fishing drivers together, it appears that top-down control dominates the link between top-predator fish and forage fish, whereas interactions between the lower trophic levels are dominated by bottom-up control. The forage fish functional group appears to be a central component of this ecosystem, being the meeting point of two opposite trophic controls. The set of combined scenarios shows that fishing pressure and upwelling-favourable wind stress have mostly dampened effects on fish populations, compared to predictions from the separate effects of the stressors. Dampened effects result in biomass accumulation at the top predator fish level but a depletion of biomass at the forage fish level. This should draw our attention to the evolution of this functional group, which appears as both structurally important in the trophic functioning of the ecosystem, and very sensitive to climate and fishing pressures. In particular, diagnoses considering fishing pressure only might be more optimistic than those that consider combined effects of fishing and

Combined Fishing and Climate Forcing in the Southern Benguela Upwelling Ecosystem: An End-to-End Modelling Approach Reveals Dampened Effects

PubMed Central

Travers-Trolet, Morgane; Shin, Yunne-Jai; Shannon, Lynne J.; Moloney, Coleen L.; Field, John G.

2014-01-01

The effects of climate and fishing on marine ecosystems have usually been studied separately, but their interactions make ecosystem dynamics difficult to understand and predict. Of particular interest to management, the potential synergism or antagonism between fishing pressure and climate forcing is analysed in this paper, using an end-to-end ecosystem model of the southern Benguela ecosystem, built from coupling hydrodynamic, biogeochemical and multispecies fish models (ROMS-N2P2Z2D2-OSMOSE). Scenarios of different intensities of upwelling-favourable wind stress combined with scenarios of fishing top-predator fish were tested. Analyses of isolated drivers show that the bottom-up effect of the climate forcing propagates up the food chain whereas the top-down effect of fishing cascades down to zooplankton in unfavourable environmental conditions but dampens before it reaches phytoplankton. When considering both climate and fishing drivers together, it appears that top-down control dominates the link between top-predator fish and forage fish, whereas interactions between the lower trophic levels are dominated by bottom-up control. The forage fish functional group appears to be a central component of this ecosystem, being the meeting point of two opposite trophic controls. The set of combined scenarios shows that fishing pressure and upwelling-favourable wind stress have mostly dampened effects on fish populations, compared to predictions from the separate effects of the stressors. Dampened effects result in biomass accumulation at the top predator fish level but a depletion of biomass at the forage fish level. This should draw our attention to the evolution of this functional group, which appears as both structurally important in the trophic functioning of the ecosystem, and very sensitive to climate and fishing pressures. In particular, diagnoses considering fishing pressure only might be more optimistic than those that consider combined effects of fishing and

Marine Arctic Ecosystem Study (MARES): Pilot Project - Marine Mammal Tagging and Tracking

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-30

project . NOPP is an innovative collaboration of federal agencies that support ocean research partnerships among academia, government, industry, and...1 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Marine Arctic Ecosystem Study (MARES): Pilot Project ...Francis.Wiese@stantec.com Award Number: N0001415IP00085 LONG-TERM GOALS The overarching goal of the MARES project is to understand the

Human activities change marine ecosystems by altering predation risk.

PubMed

Madin, Elizabeth M P; Dill, Lawrence M; Ridlon, April D; Heithaus, Michael R; Warner, Robert R

2016-01-01

In ocean ecosystems, many of the changes in predation risk - both increases and decreases - are human-induced. These changes are occurring at scales ranging from global to local and across variable temporal scales. Indirect, risk-based effects of human activity are known to be important in structuring some terrestrial ecosystems, but these impacts have largely been neglected in oceans. Here, we synthesize existing literature and data to explore multiple lines of evidence that collectively suggest diverse human activities are changing marine ecosystems, including carbon storage capacity, in myriad ways by altering predation risk. We provide novel, compelling evidence that at least one key human activity, overfishing, can lead to distinct, cascading risk effects in natural ecosystems whose magnitude exceeds that of presumed lethal effects and may account for previously unexplained findings. We further discuss the conservation implications of human-caused indirect risk effects. Finally, we provide a predictive framework for when human alterations of risk in oceans should lead to cascading effects and outline a prospectus for future research. Given the speed and extent with which human activities are altering marine risk landscapes, it is crucial that conservation and management policy considers the indirect effects of these activities in order to increase the likelihood of success and avoid unfortunate surprises. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Future of Marine Biogeochemistry, Ecosystems, and Societies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bundy, Alida; Liu, Kon-Kee; Thomas, Helmuth

2013-05-01

The international project Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) convenes an IMBIZO (a Zulu word meaning "a gathering") biennially, with a format of three concurrent, interacting workshops designed to synthesize information on topical research areas in marine science. IMBIZO III, held at the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa, India, focused on multidimensional approaches to challenges of global change in continental margins (CM), open ocean systems, and dependent human societies. More than 120 participants from 29 nations attended the meeting; the smaller workshop groups allowed in-depth discussions, and daily plenary sessions facilitated discussion among interdisciplinary experts.

The added complications of climate change: understanding and managing biodiversity and ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Amanda Staudt,; Allison K. Leidner,; Jennifer Howard,; Kate A. Brauman,; Jeffrey S. Dukes,; Hansen, Lara J.; Paukert, Craig P.; Sabo, John L.; Solorzano, Luis A.

2013-01-01

Ecosystems around the world are already threatened by land-use and land-cover change, extraction of natural resources, biological disturbances, and pollution. These environmental stressors have been the primary source of ecosystem degradation to date, and climate change is now exacerbating some of their effects. Ecosystems already under stress are likely to have more rapid and acute reactions to climate change; it is therefore useful to understand how multiple stresses will interact, especially as the magnitude of climate change increases. Understanding these interactions could be critically important in the design of climate adaptation strategies, especially because actions taken by other sectors (eg energy, agriculture, transportation) to address climate change may create new ecosystem stresses.

Ecosystem and Food Security in a Changing Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Field, C. B.

2011-12-01

Observed and projected impacts of climate change for ecosystem and food security tend to appear as changes in the risk of both desirable and undesirable outcomes. As a consequence, it is useful to frame the challenge of adaptation to a changing climate as a problem in risk management. For some kinds of impacts, the risks are relatively well characterized. For others, they are poorly known. Especially for the cases where the risks are poorly known, effective adaptation will need to consider approaches that build dynamic portfolios of options, based on learning from experience. Effective adaptation approaches also need to consider the risks of threshold-type responses, where opportunities for gradual adaptation based on learning may be limited. Finally, effective adaptation should build on the understanding that negative impacts on ecosystems and food security often result from extreme events, where a link to climate change may be unclear now and far into the future. Ecosystem and food security impacts that potentially require adaptation to a changing climate vary from region to region and interact strongly with actions not related to climate. In many ecosystems, climate change shifts the risk profile to increase risks of wildfire and biological invasions. Higher order risks from factors like pests and pathogens remain difficult to quantify. For food security, observational evidence highlights threshold-like behavior to high temperature in yields of a number of crops. But the risks to food security may be much broader, encompassing risks to availability of irrigation, degradation of topsoil, and challenges of storage and distribution. A risk management approach facilitates consideration of all these challenges with a unified framework.

Ecosystem oceanography for global change in fisheries.

PubMed

Cury, Philippe Maurice; Shin, Yunne-Jai; Planque, Benjamin; Durant, Joël Marcel; Fromentin, Jean-Marc; Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie; Stenseth, Nils Christian; Travers, Morgane; Grimm, Volker

2008-06-01

Overexploitation and climate change are increasingly causing unanticipated changes in marine ecosystems, such as higher variability in fish recruitment and shifts in species dominance. An ecosystem-based approach to fisheries attempts to address these effects by integrating populations, food webs and fish habitats at different scales. Ecosystem models represent indispensable tools to achieve this objective. However, a balanced research strategy is needed to avoid overly complex models. Ecosystem oceanography represents such a balanced strategy that relates ecosystem components and their interactions to climate change and exploitation. It aims at developing realistic and robust models at different levels of organisation and addressing specific questions in a global change context while systematically exploring the ever-increasing amount of biological and environmental data.

Changes in Marine Environments and Responses of Ecosystem Dynamics in the East Asian Pacific

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ogawa, Hiroshi; Saito, Hiroaki; Ju, Se-Jong

2014-02-01

At an international symposium on the marine systems of the Pacific region of East Asia, scientists concluded that changes in the ocean environment are having a significant effect on biogeochemical cycles and ecosystems and, consequently, on humans and the food supply. The meeting, the 6th China-Japan-Korea (CJK) Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research symposium, was held in Japan at the University of Tokyo.

Ecosystem service provision: an operational way for marine biodiversity conservation and management.

PubMed

Cognetti, Giuseppe; Maltagliati, Ferruccio

2010-11-01

Since no extensive conceptual framework has been developed on the issues of ecosystem service (ES) and service provider (SP) in the marine environment, we have made an attempt to apply these to the conservation and management of marine biodiversity. Within this context, an accurate individuation of SPs, namely the biological component of a given ecosystem that supports human activities is fundamental. SPs are the agents responsible for making the ES-based approach operational. The application of these concepts to the marine environment should be based on an model different to the terrestrial one. In the latter, the basic model envisages a matrix of a human-altered landscape with fragments of original biodiversity; conversely, in the marine environment the model provides fragments where human activities are carried out and the matrix is represented by the original biodiversity. We have identified three main classes of ES provision: in natural, disturbed and human-controlled environments. Economic valuation of marine ESs is an essential condition for making conservation strategies financially sustainable, as it may stimulate the perceived need for investing in protection and exploitation of marine resources. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of acidification on olfactory-mediated behaviour in freshwater and marine ecosystems: a synthesis.

PubMed

Leduc, Antoine O H C; Munday, Philip L; Brown, Grant E; Ferrari, Maud C O

2013-01-01

For many aquatic organisms, olfactory-mediated behaviour is essential to the maintenance of numerous fitness-enhancing activities, including foraging, reproduction and predator avoidance. Studies in both freshwater and marine ecosystems have demonstrated significant impacts of anthropogenic acidification on olfactory abilities of fish and macroinvertebrates, leading to impaired behavioural responses, with potentially far-reaching consequences to population dynamics and community structure. Whereas the ecological impacts of impaired olfactory-mediated behaviour may be similar between freshwater and marine ecosystems, the underlying mechanisms are quite distinct. In acidified freshwater, molecular change to chemical cues along with reduced olfaction sensitivity appear to be the primary causes of olfactory-mediated behavioural impairment. By contrast, experiments simulating future ocean acidification suggest that interference of high CO2 with brain neurotransmitter function is the primary cause for olfactory-mediated behavioural impairment in fish. Different physico-chemical characteristics between marine and freshwater systems are probably responsible for these distinct mechanisms of impairment, which, under globally rising CO2 levels, may lead to strikingly different consequences to olfaction. While fluctuations in pH may occur in both freshwater and marine ecosystems, marine habitat will remain alkaline despite future ocean acidification caused by globally rising CO2 levels. In this synthesis, we argue that ecosystem-specific mechanisms affecting olfaction need to be considered for effective management and conservation practices.

Effects of acidification on olfactory-mediated behaviour in freshwater and marine ecosystems: a synthesis

PubMed Central

Leduc, Antoine O. H. C.; Munday, Philip L.; Brown, Grant E.; Ferrari, Maud C. O.

2013-01-01

For many aquatic organisms, olfactory-mediated behaviour is essential to the maintenance of numerous fitness-enhancing activities, including foraging, reproduction and predator avoidance. Studies in both freshwater and marine ecosystems have demonstrated significant impacts of anthropogenic acidification on olfactory abilities of fish and macroinvertebrates, leading to impaired behavioural responses, with potentially far-reaching consequences to population dynamics and community structure. Whereas the ecological impacts of impaired olfactory-mediated behaviour may be similar between freshwater and marine ecosystems, the underlying mechanisms are quite distinct. In acidified freshwater, molecular change to chemical cues along with reduced olfaction sensitivity appear to be the primary causes of olfactory-mediated behavioural impairment. By contrast, experiments simulating future ocean acidification suggest that interference of high CO2 with brain neurotransmitter function is the primary cause for olfactory-mediated behavioural impairment in fish. Different physico-chemical characteristics between marine and freshwater systems are probably responsible for these distinct mechanisms of impairment, which, under globally rising CO2 levels, may lead to strikingly different consequences to olfaction. While fluctuations in pH may occur in both freshwater and marine ecosystems, marine habitat will remain alkaline despite future ocean acidification caused by globally rising CO2 levels. In this synthesis, we argue that ecosystem-specific mechanisms affecting olfaction need to be considered for effective management and conservation practices. PMID:23980246

Manatees as sentinels of marine ecosystem health: are they the 2000-pound canaries?

USGS Publications Warehouse

Bonde, R.K.; Aguirre, A.A.; Powell, J.

2004-01-01

The order Sirenia is represented by three species of manatees and one species of dugong distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of the world and considered vulnerable to extinction. The sentinel species concept is useful to identify indicators of the environment and may reflect the quality of health in marine ecosystems. The single species approach to evaluate ecological health may provide a series of “snap shots” of environmental changes to determine if animal, human, or ecosystem health may be affected. Under this concept, marine vertebrates may be good integrators of changes over space and time, and excellent sentinels of ecosystem health. Based on their life history, manatees may or may not be ideal sentinels, as they are robust, long-lived species and appear remarkably resilient to natural disease and the effects of human-related injury and trauma. These characteristics might be the result of an efficient and responsive immune system compared to other marine mammals. Although relatively immune to infectious agents, manatees face other potentially serious threats, including epizootic diseases and pollution while in large aggregations. Manatees can serve as excellent sentinels of harmful algal blooms due to their high sensitivity, specifically to brevetoxicosis, which has caused at least two major die-offs in recent times. Threats to manatees worldwide, such as illegal hunting and boat collisions, are increasing. Habitat is being lost at an alarming rate and the full effects of uncontrolled human population growth on the species are unknown. The manatee may serve as a sentinel species, prognosticating the deleterious effects of unhealthy marine and aquatic ecosystems on humans. We have identified a number of critical research needs and opportunities for transdisciplinary collaboration that could help advance the use of the sentinel species concept in marine ecosystem health and monitoring of disease emergence using our knowledge on these magnificent

Organization of marine phenology data in support of planning and conservation in ocean and coastal ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Thomas, Kathryn A.; Fornwall, Mark D.; Weltzin, Jake F.; Griffis, R.B.

2014-01-01

Among the many effects of climate change is its influence on the phenology of biota. In marine and coastal ecosystems, phenological shifts have been documented for multiple life forms; however, biological data related to marine species' phenology remain difficult to access and is under-used. We conducted an assessment of potential sources of biological data for marine species and their availability for use in phenological analyses and assessments. Our evaluations showed that data potentially related to understanding marine species' phenology are available through online resources of governmental, academic, and non-governmental organizations, but appropriate datasets are often difficult to discover and access, presenting opportunities for scientific infrastructure improvement. The developing Federal Marine Data Architecture when fully implemented will improve data flow and standardization for marine data within major federal repositories and provide an archival repository for collaborating academic and public data contributors. Another opportunity, largely untapped, is the engagement of citizen scientists in standardized collection of marine phenology data and contribution of these data to established data flows. Use of metadata with marine phenology related keywords could improve discovery and access to appropriate datasets. When data originators choose to self-publish, publication of research datasets with a digital object identifier, linked to metadata, will also improve subsequent discovery and access. Phenological changes in the marine environment will affect human economics, food systems, and recreation. No one source of data will be sufficient to understand these changes. The collective attention of marine data collectors is needed—whether with an agency, an educational institution, or a citizen scientist group—toward adopting the data management processes and standards needed to ensure availability of sufficient and useable marine data to understand

Tropical rainforest response to marine sky brightening climate engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Muri, Helene; Niemeier, Ulrike; Kristjánsson, Jón Egill

2015-04-01

Tropical forests represent a major atmospheric carbon dioxide sink. Here the gross primary productivity (GPP) response of tropical rainforests to climate engineering via marine sky brightening under a future scenario is investigated in three Earth system models. The model response is diverse, and in two of the three models, the tropical GPP shows a decrease from the marine sky brightening climate engineering. Partial correlation analysis indicates precipitation to be important in one of those models, while precipitation and temperature are limiting factors in the other. One model experiences a reversal of its Amazon dieback under marine sky brightening. There, the strongest partial correlation of GPP is to temperature and incoming solar radiation at the surface. Carbon fertilization provides a higher future tropical rainforest GPP overall, both with and without climate engineering. Salt damage to plants and soils could be an important aspect of marine sky brightening.

Effects of Ocean Acidification on Temperate Coastal Marine Ecosystems and Fisheries in the Northeast Pacific

PubMed Central

Haigh, Rowan; Ianson, Debby; Holt, Carrie A.; Neate, Holly E.; Edwards, Andrew M.

2015-01-01

As the oceans absorb anthropogenic CO2 they become more acidic, a problem termed ocean acidification (OA). Since this increase in CO2 is occurring rapidly, OA may have profound implications for marine ecosystems. In the temperate northeast Pacific, fisheries play key economic and cultural roles and provide significant employment, especially in rural areas. In British Columbia (BC), sport (recreational) fishing generates more income than commercial fishing (including the expanding aquaculture industry). Salmon (fished recreationally and farmed) and Pacific Halibut are responsible for the majority of fishery-related income. This region naturally has relatively acidic (low pH) waters due to ocean circulation, and so may be particularly vulnerable to OA. We have analyzed available data to provide a current description of the marine ecosystem, focusing on vertical distributions of commercially harvested groups in BC in the context of local carbon and pH conditions. We then evaluated the potential impact of OA on this temperate marine system using currently available studies. Our results highlight significant knowledge gaps. Above trophic levels 2–3 (where most local fishery-income is generated), little is known about the direct impact of OA, and more importantly about the combined impact of multi-stressors, like temperature, that are also changing as our climate changes. There is evidence that OA may have indirect negative impacts on finfish through changes at lower trophic levels and in habitats. In particular, OA may lead to increased fish-killing algal blooms that can affect the lucrative salmon aquaculture industry. On the other hand, some species of locally farmed shellfish have been well-studied and exhibit significant negative direct impacts associated with OA, especially at the larval stage. We summarize the direct and indirect impacts of OA on all groups of marine organisms in this region and provide conclusions, ordered by immediacy and certainty. PMID

Effects of ocean acidification on temperate coastal marine ecosystems and fisheries in the northeast Pacific.

PubMed

Haigh, Rowan; Ianson, Debby; Holt, Carrie A; Neate, Holly E; Edwards, Andrew M

2015-01-01

As the oceans absorb anthropogenic CO2 they become more acidic, a problem termed ocean acidification (OA). Since this increase in CO2 is occurring rapidly, OA may have profound implications for marine ecosystems. In the temperate northeast Pacific, fisheries play key economic and cultural roles and provide significant employment, especially in rural areas. In British Columbia (BC), sport (recreational) fishing generates more income than commercial fishing (including the expanding aquaculture industry). Salmon (fished recreationally and farmed) and Pacific Halibut are responsible for the majority of fishery-related income. This region naturally has relatively acidic (low pH) waters due to ocean circulation, and so may be particularly vulnerable to OA. We have analyzed available data to provide a current description of the marine ecosystem, focusing on vertical distributions of commercially harvested groups in BC in the context of local carbon and pH conditions. We then evaluated the potential impact of OA on this temperate marine system using currently available studies. Our results highlight significant knowledge gaps. Above trophic levels 2-3 (where most local fishery-income is generated), little is known about the direct impact of OA, and more importantly about the combined impact of multi-stressors, like temperature, that are also changing as our climate changes. There is evidence that OA may have indirect negative impacts on finfish through changes at lower trophic levels and in habitats. In particular, OA may lead to increased fish-killing algal blooms that can affect the lucrative salmon aquaculture industry. On the other hand, some species of locally farmed shellfish have been well-studied and exhibit significant negative direct impacts associated with OA, especially at the larval stage. We summarize the direct and indirect impacts of OA on all groups of marine organisms in this region and provide conclusions, ordered by immediacy and certainty.

Calcium Isotopic Evidence for Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem Structure Prior to the K/Pg Extinction.

PubMed

Martin, Jeremy E; Vincent, Peggy; Tacail, Théo; Khaldoune, Fatima; Jourani, Essaid; Bardet, Nathalie; Balter, Vincent

2017-06-05

The collapse of marine ecosystems during the end-Cretaceous mass extinction involved the base of the food chain [1] up to ubiquitous vertebrate apex predators [2-5]. Large marine reptiles became suddenly extinct at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary, whereas other contemporaneous groups such as bothremydid turtles or dyrosaurid crocodylomorphs, although affected at the familial, genus, or species level, survived into post-crisis environments of the Paleocene [5-9] and could have found refuge in freshwater habitats [10-12]. A recent hypothesis proposes that the extinction of plesiosaurians and mosasaurids could have been caused by an important drop in sea level [13]. Mosasaurids are unusually diverse and locally abundant in the Maastrichtian phosphatic deposits of Morocco, and with large sharks and one species of elasmosaurid plesiosaurian recognized so far, contribute to an overabundance of apex predators [3, 7, 14, 15]. For this reason, high local diversity of marine reptiles exhibiting different body masses and a wealth of tooth morphologies hints at complex trophic interactions within this latest Cretaceous marine ecosystem. Using calcium isotopes, we investigated the trophic structure of this extinct assemblage. Our results are consistent with a calcium isotope pattern observed in modern marine ecosystems and show that plesiosaurians and mosasaurids indiscriminately fall in the tertiary piscivore group. This suggests that marine reptile apex predators relied onto a single dietary calcium source, compatible with the vulnerable wasp-waist food webs of the modern world [16]. This inferred peculiar ecosystem structure may help explain plesiosaurian and mosasaurid extinction following the end-Cretaceous biological crisis. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Southern Ocean ecosystem under multiple climate change stresses--an integrated circumpolar assessment.

PubMed

Gutt, Julian; Bertler, Nancy; Bracegirdle, Thomas J; Buschmann, Alexander; Comiso, Josefino; Hosie, Graham; Isla, Enrique; Schloss, Irene R; Smith, Craig R; Tournadre, Jean; Xavier, José C

2015-04-01

A quantitative assessment of observed and projected environmental changes in the Southern Ocean (SO) with a potential impact on the marine ecosystem shows: (i) large proportions of the SO are and will be affected by one or more climate change processes; areas projected to be affected in the future are larger than areas that are already under environmental stress, (ii) areas affected by changes in sea-ice in the past and likely in the future are much larger than areas affected by ocean warming. The smallest areas (<1% area of the SO) are affected by glacier retreat and warming in the deeper euphotic layer. In the future, decrease in the sea-ice is expected to be widespread. Changes in iceberg impact resulting from further collapse of ice-shelves can potentially affect large parts of shelf and ephemerally in the off-shore regions. However, aragonite undersaturation (acidification) might become one of the biggest problems for the Antarctic marine ecosystem by affecting almost the entire SO. Direct and indirect impacts of various environmental changes to the three major habitats, sea-ice, pelagic and benthos and their biota are complex. The areas affected by environmental stressors range from 33% of the SO for a single stressor, 11% for two and 2% for three, to <1% for four and five overlapping factors. In the future, areas expected to be affected by 2 and 3 overlapping factors are equally large, including potential iceberg changes, and together cover almost 86% of the SO ecosystem. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Assessment of the impact of increased solar ultraviolet radiation upon marine ecosystems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Worrest, R. C.; Vandyke, H.

1978-01-01

Reduction of the earth's ozone layer, with a resultant increase in transmission of solar ultraviolet radiation in the 290 to 320nm waveband (UV-B), via space shuttle operations through the stratosphere is considered. It is shown that simulated solar ultraviolet radiation can, under experimental conditions, detrimentally affect the marine organisms that form the base of the food web of oceanic and estuarine ecosystems. Whether a small increase in biologically harmful ultraviolet radiation might overwhelm these mechanisms and produce changes that will have damaging consequences to the biosphere is discussed. The potential for irreversible damage to the productivity, structure and/or functioning of a model estuarine ecosystem by increased UV-B radiation and whether these ecosystems are highly stable or amenable to adaptive change is studied. Data are provided to assess the potential impact upon marine ecosystems if space shuttle operations contribute to a reduction of the stratospheric ozone layer and the sensitivity of key community components to increased UV-B radiation is examined.

Ecosystem model of the entire Beaufort Sea marine ecosystem: a tool for assessing food-web structure and ecosystem changes from 1970 to 2014

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suprenand, P. M.; Hoover, C.

2016-02-01

The Beaufort Sea coastal-marine ecosystem is approximately a 476,000 km2 area in the Arctic Ocean, which extends from -112.5 to -158° longitude to 67.5 to 75° latitude. Within this Arctic Ocean area the United States (Alaskan) indigenous communities of Barrow, Kaktovik, and Nuiqsut, and the Canadian (Northwest Territories) indigenous communities of Aklavik, Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, Paulatuk, Ulukhaktok, and Sachs Harbour, subsist by harvesting marine mammals, fish, and invertebrates from the Beaufort Sea to provide the majority of their community foods annually. The ecosystem in which the indigenous communities harvest is considered a polar habitat that includes many specialized species, such as polar bears that rely on sea-ice for foraging activities and denning, or ice algae that are attached to the cryosphere. However, the polar habitat has been experiencing a diminishing sea-ice extent, age, and seasonal duration, with concomitant increases in sea surface temperatures (SSTs), since the 1970s. Changes in sea-ice and SST have consequences to the Beaufort Sea coastal-marine ecosystem, which includes animal habitat losses, alterations to trophodynamics, and impacts to subsistence community harvesting. The present study was aimed at capturing trophodynamic changes in the Beaufort Sea coastal-marine ecosystem from 1970 to 2014 using a fitted spatial-temporal model (Ecopath with Ecosim and Ecospace) that utilizes forcing and mediation functions to describe animal/trophodynamic relationships with sea-ice and sea surface temperature, as well as individual community harvesting efforts. Model outputs reveals similar trends in animals population changes (e.g., increasing bowhead whale stock), changes in apex predator diets (e.g., polar bears eating less ringed seal), and changes in animal distributions (e.g., polar bears remaining closer to land over time). The Beaufort Sea model is a dynamic tool for Arctic Ocean natural resource management in the years to come.

Trophic amplification of climate warming

PubMed Central

Kirby, Richard R.; Beaugrand, Gregory

2009-01-01

Ecosystems can alternate suddenly between contrasting persistent states due to internal processes or external drivers. It is important to understand the mechanisms by which these shifts occur, especially in exploited ecosystems. There have been several abrupt marine ecosystem shifts attributed either to fishing, recent climate change or a combination of these two drivers. We show that temperature has been an important driver of the trophodynamics of the North Sea, a heavily fished marine ecosystem, for nearly 50 years and that a recent pronounced change in temperature established a new ecosystem dynamic regime through a series of internal mechanisms. Using an end-to-end ecosystem approach that included primary producers, primary, secondary and tertiary consumers, and detritivores, we found that temperature modified the relationships among species through nonlinearities in the ecosystem involving ecological thresholds and trophic amplifications. Trophic amplification provides an alternative mechanism to positive feedback to drive an ecosystem towards a new dynamic regime, which in this case favours jellyfish in the plankton and decapods and detritivores in the benthos. Although overfishing is often held responsible for marine ecosystem degeneration, temperature can clearly bring about similar effects. Our results are relevant to ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), seen as the way forward to manage exploited marine ecosystems. PMID:19740882

Drivers and uncertainties of future global marine primary production in marine ecosystem models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Laufkötter, C.; Vogt, M.; Gruber, N.; Aita-Noguchi, M.; Aumont, O.; Bopp, L.; Buitenhuis, E.; Doney, S. C.; Dunne, J.; Hashioka, T.; Hauck, J.; Hirata, T.; John, J.; Le Quéré, C.; Lima, I. D.; Nakano, H.; Seferian, R.; Totterdell, I.; Vichi, M.; Völker, C.

2015-12-01

Past model studies have projected a global decrease in marine net primary production (NPP) over the 21st century, but these studies focused on the multi-model mean rather than on the large inter-model differences. Here, we analyze model-simulated changes in NPP for the 21st century under IPCC's high-emission scenario RCP8.5. We use a suite of nine coupled carbon-climate Earth system models with embedded marine ecosystem models and focus on the spread between the different models and the underlying reasons. Globally, NPP decreases in five out of the nine models over the course of the 21st century, while three show no significant trend and one even simulates an increase. The largest model spread occurs in the low latitudes (between 30° S and 30° N), with individual models simulating relative changes between -25 and +40 %. Of the seven models diagnosing a net decrease in NPP in the low latitudes, only three simulate this to be a consequence of the classical interpretation, i.e., a stronger nutrient limitation due to increased stratification leading to reduced phytoplankton growth. In the other four, warming-induced increases in phytoplankton growth outbalance the stronger nutrient limitation. However, temperature-driven increases in grazing and other loss processes cause a net decrease in phytoplankton biomass and reduce NPP despite higher growth rates. One model projects a strong increase in NPP in the low latitudes, caused by an intensification of the microbial loop, while NPP in the remaining model changes by less than 0.5 %. While models consistently project increases NPP in the Southern Ocean, the regional inter-model range is also very substantial. In most models, this increase in NPP is driven by temperature, but it is also modulated by changes in light, macronutrients and iron as well as grazing. Overall, current projections of future changes in global marine NPP are subject to large uncertainties and necessitate a dedicated and sustained effort to improve

Late Holocene interdecadal climate variability in the Sahel: inferences from a marine dust record offshore Senegal

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meyer, I.; Stuut, J.-B.; Mollenhauer, G.; Mulitza, S.; Zabel, M.

2009-04-01

Present-day climate in northwestern Africa strongly depends on the avaiability of water. At least since the Pliocene the Saharan Desert and the semiarid Sahel belt (tropical North Afrika) have been frequently affected by sudden shifts to more arid climate. The rate of change from arid to humid conditions is presently under heavy debate (e.g., deMenocal et al., 2001, Kröpelin et al., 2008). A recent example of abrupt droughts occurred in the early 70's and 80's of the last century. In this study we compare different high-resolution marine sediment records of Sahel climate variability from the Senegal mud belt, northwest Africa. Marine sediment cores show the variations of terrigenous input (both aeolian dust and fluvial matter) from the African continent. Due to their different distinctive grain-size distributions, aeolian dust and fluvial mud can be recognised and quantified in marine sediments (e.g., Stuut et al., 2002). Based on these variations in the grain-size distributions of the terrigenous sediment fraction, deconvolved with an end-member modelling algorithm (Weltje, 1997), are used to reconstruct rainfall variability and dust production on land for the last 4,000 years. References P. B. deMenocal, et al. (2001). Late Holocene Cultural Responses to Climate Change During the Holocene. Science 292, 667 S. Kröpelin, et al. (2008) Response to Comment on "Climate-Driven Ecosystem Succession in the Sahara: The Past 6000 Years" Science 322, 1326c G. J. Weltje (1997) End-member modeling of compositional data: Numerical-statistical algorithms for solving the explicit mixing problem. Mathematical Geology 9, 4

Balancing trade-offs between ecosystem services in Germany’s forests under climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gutsch, Martin; Lasch-Born, Petra; Kollas, Chris; Suckow, Felicitas; Reyer, Christopher P. O.

2018-04-01

Germany’s forests provide a variety of ecosystem services. Sustainable forest management aims to optimize the provision of these services at regional level. However, climate change will impact forest ecosystems and subsequently ecosystem services. The objective of this study is to quantify the effects of two alternative management scenarios and climate impacts on forest variables indicative of ecosystem services related to timber, habitat, water, and carbon. The ecosystem services are represented through nine model output variables (timber harvest, above and belowground biomass, net ecosystem production, soil carbon, percolation, nitrogen leaching, deadwood, tree dimension, broadleaf tree proportion) from the process-based forest model 4C. We simulated forest growth, carbon and water cycling until 2045 with 4C set-up for the whole German forest area based on National Forest Inventory data and driven by three management strategies (nature protection, biomass production and a baseline management) and an ensemble of regional climate scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP 4.5, RCP 8.5). We provide results as relative changes compared to the baseline management and observed climate. Forest management measures have the strongest effects on ecosystem services inducing positive or negative changes of up to 40% depending on the ecosystem service in question, whereas climate change only slightly alters ecosystem services averaged over the whole forest area. The ecosystem services ‘carbon’ and ‘timber’ benefit from climate change, while ‘water’ and ‘habitat’ lose. We detect clear trade-offs between ‘timber’ and all other ecosystem services, as well as synergies between ‘habitat’ and ‘carbon’. When evaluating all ecosystem services simultaneously, our results reveal certain interrelations between climate and management scenarios. North-eastern and western forest regions are more suitable to provide timber (while minimizing the negative impacts on remaining

Impacts of discarded plastic bags on marine assemblages and ecosystem functioning.

PubMed

Green, Dannielle Senga; Boots, Bas; Blockley, David James; Rocha, Carlos; Thompson, Richard

2015-05-05

The accumulation of plastic debris is a global environmental problem due to its durability, persistence, and abundance. Although effects of plastic debris on individual marine organisms, particularly mammals and birds, have been extensively documented (e.g., entanglement and choking), very little is known about effects on assemblages and consequences for ecosystem functioning. In Europe, around 40% of the plastic items produced are utilized as single-use packaging, which rapidly accumulate in waste management facilities and as litter in the environment. A range of biodegradable plastics have been developed with the aspiration of reducing the persistence of litter; however, their impacts on marine assemblages or ecosystem functioning have never been evaluated. A field experiment was conducted to assess the impact of conventional and biodegradable plastic carrier bags as litter on benthic macro- and meio-faunal assemblages and biogeochemical processes (primary productivity, redox condition, organic matter content, and pore-water nutrients) on an intertidal shore near Dublin, Ireland. After 9 weeks, the presence of either type of bag created anoxic conditions within the sediment along with reduced primary productivity and organic matter and significantly lower abundances of infaunal invertebrates. This indicates that both conventional and biodegradable bags can rapidly alter marine assemblages and the ecosystem services they provide.

Valuing biodiversity and ecosystem services: a useful way to manage and conserve marine resources?

PubMed Central

Broszeit, Stefanie; Pilling, Graham M.; Grant, Susie M.; Austen, Melanie C.

2016-01-01

Valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) is widely recognized as a useful, though often controversial, approach to conservation and management. However, its use in the marine environment, hence evidence of its efficacy, lags behind that in terrestrial ecosystems. This largely reflects key challenges to marine conservation and management such as the practical difficulties in studying the ocean, complex governance issues and the historically-rooted separation of biodiversity conservation and resource management. Given these challenges together with the accelerating loss of marine biodiversity (and threats to the ES that this biodiversity supports), we ask whether valuation efforts for marine ecosystems are appropriate and effective. We compare three contrasting systems: the tropical Pacific, Southern Ocean and UK coastal seas. In doing so, we reveal a diversity in valuation approaches with different rates of progress and success. We also find a tendency to focus on specific ES (often the harvested species) rather than biodiversity. In light of our findings, we present a new conceptual view of valuation that should ideally be considered in decision-making. Accounting for the critical relationships between biodiversity and ES, together with an understanding of ecosystem structure and functioning, will enable the wider implications of marine conservation and management decisions to be evaluated. We recommend embedding valuation within existing management structures, rather than treating it as an alternative or additional mechanism. However, we caution that its uptake and efficacy will be compromised without the ability to develop and share best practice across regions. PMID:27928037

Climate change influences on marine infectious diseases: implications for management and society

USGS Publications Warehouse

Burge, Colleen A.; Eakin, C. Mark; Friedman, Carolyn S.; Froelich, Brett; Hershberger, Paul K.; Hofmann, Eileen E.; Petes, Laura E.; Prager, Katherine C.; Weil, Ernesto; Willis, Bette L.; Ford, Susan E.; Harvell, C. Drew

2014-01-01

Infectious diseases are common in marine environments, but the effects of a changing climate on marine pathogens are not well understood. Here, we focus on reviewing current knowledge about how the climate drives hostpathogen interactions and infectious disease outbreaks. Climate-related impacts on marine diseases are being documented in corals, shellfish, finfish, and humans; these impacts are less clearly linked to other organisms. Oceans and people are inextricably linked, and marine diseases can both directly and indirectly affect human health, livelihoods, and well-being. We recommend an adaptive management approach to better increase the resilience of ocean systems vulnerable to marine diseases in a changing climate. Land-based management methods of quarantining, culling, and vaccinating are not successful in the ocean; therefore, forecasting conditions that lead to outbreaks and designing tools/approaches to influence these conditions may be the best way to manage marine disease.

Ecosystem-based analysis of a marine protected area where fisheries and protected species coexist.

PubMed

Espinoza-Tenorio, Alejandro; Montaño-Moctezuma, Gabriela; Espejel, Ileana

2010-04-01

The Gulf of California Biosphere Reserve (UGC&CRDBR) is a Marine Protected Area that was established in 1993 with the aim of preserving biodiversity and remediating environmental impacts. Because remaining vigilant is hard and because regulatory measures are difficult to enforce, harvesting has been allowed to diminish poaching. Useful management strategies have not been implemented, however, and conflicts remain between conservation legislation and the fisheries. We developed a transdisciplinary methodological scheme (pressure-state-response, loop analysis, and Geographic Information System) that includes both protected species and fisheries modeled together in a spatially represented marine ecosystem. We analyzed the response of this marine ecosystem supposing that conservation strategies were successful and that the abundance of protected species had increased. The final aim of this study was to identify ecosystem-level management alternatives capable of diminishing the conflict between conservation measures and fisheries. This methodological integration aimed to understand the functioning of the UGC&CRDBR community as well as to identify implications of conservation strategies such as the recovery of protected species. Our results suggest research hypotheses related to key species that should be protected within the ecosystem, and they point out the importance of considering spatial management strategies. Counterintuitive findings underline the importance of understanding how the community responds to disturbances and the effect of indirect pathways on the abundance of ecosystem constituents. Insights from this research are valuable in defining policies in marine reserves where fisheries and protected species coexist.

Ecosystem-Based Analysis of a Marine Protected Area Where Fisheries and Protected Species Coexist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Espinoza-Tenorio, Alejandro; Montaño-Moctezuma, Gabriela; Espejel, Ileana

2010-04-01

The Gulf of California Biosphere Reserve (UGC&CRDBR) is a Marine Protected Area that was established in 1993 with the aim of preserving biodiversity and remediating environmental impacts. Because remaining vigilant is hard and because regulatory measures are difficult to enforce, harvesting has been allowed to diminish poaching. Useful management strategies have not been implemented, however, and conflicts remain between conservation legislation and the fisheries. We developed a transdisciplinary methodological scheme (pressure-state-response, loop analysis, and Geographic Information System) that includes both protected species and fisheries modeled together in a spatially represented marine ecosystem. We analyzed the response of this marine ecosystem supposing that conservation strategies were successful and that the abundance of protected species had increased. The final aim of this study was to identify ecosystem-level management alternatives capable of diminishing the conflict between conservation measures and fisheries. This methodological integration aimed to understand the functioning of the UGC&CRDBR community as well as to identify implications of conservation strategies such as the recovery of protected species. Our results suggest research hypotheses related to key species that should be protected within the ecosystem, and they point out the importance of considering spatial management strategies. Counterintuitive findings underline the importance of understanding how the community responds to disturbances and the effect of indirect pathways on the abundance of ecosystem constituents. Insights from this research are valuable in defining policies in marine reserves where fisheries and protected species coexist.

Climate Change and Ecosystem Services Output Efficiency in Southern Loblolly Pine Forests.

PubMed

Susaeta, Andres; Adams, Damian C; Carter, Douglas R; Dwivedi, Puneet

2016-09-01

Forests provide myriad ecosystem services that are vital to humanity. With climate change, we expect to see significant changes to forests that will alter the supply of these critical services and affect human well-being. To better understand the impacts of climate change on forest-based ecosystem services, we applied a data envelopment analysis method to assess plot-level efficiency in the provision of ecosystem services in Florida natural loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) forests. Using field data for n = 16 loblolly pine forest plots, including inputs such as site index, tree density, age, precipitation, and temperatures for each forest plot, we assessed the relative plot-level production of three ecosystem services: timber, carbon sequestered, and species richness. The results suggested that loblolly pine forests in Florida were largely inefficient in the provision of these ecosystem services under current climatic conditions. Climate change had a small negative impact on the loblolly pine forests efficiency in the provision of ecosystem services. In this context, we discussed the reduction of tree density that may not improve ecosystem services production.

Climate Change and Ecosystem Services Output Efficiency in Southern Loblolly Pine Forests

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Susaeta, Andres; Adams, Damian C.; Carter, Douglas R.; Dwivedi, Puneet

2016-09-01

Forests provide myriad ecosystem services that are vital to humanity. With climate change, we expect to see significant changes to forests that will alter the supply of these critical services and affect human well-being. To better understand the impacts of climate change on forest-based ecosystem services, we applied a data envelopment analysis method to assess plot-level efficiency in the provision of ecosystem services in Florida natural loblolly pine ( Pinus taeda L.) forests. Using field data for n = 16 loblolly pine forest plots, including inputs such as site index, tree density, age, precipitation, and temperatures for each forest plot, we assessed the relative plot-level production of three ecosystem services: timber, carbon sequestered, and species richness. The results suggested that loblolly pine forests in Florida were largely inefficient in the provision of these ecosystem services under current climatic conditions. Climate change had a small negative impact on the loblolly pine forests efficiency in the provision of ecosystem services. In this context, we discussed the reduction of tree density that may not improve ecosystem services production.

Deep-water longline fishing has reduced impact on Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems

PubMed Central

Pham, Christopher K.; Diogo, Hugo; Menezes, Gui; Porteiro, Filipe; Braga-Henriques, Andreia; Vandeperre, Frederic; Morato, Telmo

2014-01-01

Bottom trawl fishing threatens deep-sea ecosystems, modifying the seafloor morphology and its physical properties, with dramatic consequences on benthic communities. Therefore, the future of deep-sea fishing relies on alternative techniques that maintain the health of deep-sea ecosystems and tolerate appropriate human uses of the marine environment. In this study, we demonstrate that deep-sea bottom longline fishing has little impact on vulnerable marine ecosystems, reducing bycatch of cold-water corals and limiting additional damage to benthic communities. We found that slow-growing vulnerable species are still common in areas subject to more than 20 years of longlining activity and estimate that one deep-sea bottom trawl will have a similar impact to 296–1,719 longlines, depending on the morphological complexity of the impacted species. Given the pronounced differences in the magnitude of disturbances coupled with its selectivity and low fuel consumption, we suggest that regulated deep-sea longlining can be an alternative to deep-sea bottom trawling. PMID:24776718

A holistic view of marine regime shifts

PubMed Central

Conversi, Alessandra; Dakos, Vasilis; Gårdmark, Anna; Ling, Scott; Folke, Carl; Mumby, Peter J.; Greene, Charles; Edwards, Martin; Blenckner, Thorsten; Casini, Michele; Pershing, Andrew; Möllmann, Christian

2015-01-01

Understanding marine regime shifts is important not only for ecology but also for developing marine management that assures the provision of ecosystem services to humanity. While regime shift theory is well developed, there is still no common understanding on drivers, mechanisms and characteristic of abrupt changes in real marine ecosystems. Based on contributions to the present theme issue, we highlight some general issues that need to be overcome for developing a more comprehensive understanding of marine ecosystem regime shifts. We find a great divide between benthic reef and pelagic ocean systems in how regime shift theory is linked to observed abrupt changes. Furthermore, we suggest that the long-lasting discussion on the prevalence of top-down trophic or bottom-up physical drivers in inducing regime shifts may be overcome by taking into consideration the synergistic interactions of multiple stressors, and the special characteristics of different ecosystem types. We present a framework for the holistic investigation of marine regime shifts that considers multiple exogenous drivers that interact with endogenous mechanisms to cause abrupt, catastrophic change. This framework takes into account the time-delayed synergies of these stressors, which erode the resilience of the ecosystem and eventually enable the crossing of ecological thresholds. Finally, considering that increased pressures in the marine environment are predicted by the current climate change assessments, in order to avoid major losses of ecosystem services, we suggest that marine management approaches should incorporate knowledge on environmental thresholds and develop tools that consider regime shift dynamics and characteristics. This grand challenge can only be achieved through a holistic view of marine ecosystem dynamics as evidenced by this theme issue.

Measuring resilience and assessing vulnerability of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change in South America

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

Climate change has been identified as the primary threat to the integrity and functioning of ecosystems in this century, although there is still much uncertainty about its effects and the degree of vulnerability for different ecosystems to this threat. Here we propose a new methodological approach capable of measuring and mapping the resilience of terrestrial ecosystems at large scales based on their climatic niche. To do this, we used high spatial resolution remote sensing data and ecological niche modeling techniques to calculate and spatialize the resilience of three stable states of ecosystems in South America: forest, savanna, and grassland. Also, we evaluated the sensitivity of ecosystems to climate stress, the likelihood of exposure to non-analogous climatic conditions, and their respective adaptive capacities in the face of climate change. Our results indicate that forests, the most productive and biodiverse terrestrial ecosystems on the earth, are more vulnerable to climate change than savannas or grasslands. Forests showed less resistance to climate stress and a higher chance of exposure to non-analogous climatic conditions. If this scenario occurs, the forest ecosystems would have less chance of adaptation compared to savannas or grasslands because of their narrow climate niche. Therefore, we can conclude that a possible consolidation of non-analogous climatic conditions would lead to a loss of resilience in the forest ecosystem, significantly increasing the chance of a critical transition event to another stable state with a lower density of vegetation cover (e.g., savanna or grassland). PMID:29554132

Climate change could drive marine food web collapse through altered trophic flows and cyanobacterial proliferation

PubMed Central

Ullah, Hadayet; Goldenberg, Silvan U.; Fordham, Damien A.

2018-01-01

Global warming and ocean acidification are forecast to exert significant impacts on marine ecosystems worldwide. However, most of these projections are based on ecological proxies or experiments on single species or simplified food webs. How energy fluxes are likely to change in marine food webs in response to future climates remains unclear, hampering forecasts of ecosystem functioning. Using a sophisticated mesocosm experiment, we model energy flows through a species-rich multilevel food web, with live habitats, natural abiotic variability, and the potential for intra- and intergenerational adaptation. We show experimentally that the combined stress of acidification and warming reduced energy flows from the first trophic level (primary producers and detritus) to the second (herbivores), and from the second to the third trophic level (carnivores). Warming in isolation also reduced the energy flow from herbivores to carnivores, the efficiency of energy transfer from primary producers and detritus to herbivores and detritivores, and the living biomass of detritivores, herbivores, and carnivores. Whilst warming and acidification jointly boosted primary producer biomass through an expansion of cyanobacteria, this biomass was converted to detritus rather than to biomass at higher trophic levels—i.e., production was constrained to the base of the food web. In contrast, ocean acidification affected the food web positively by enhancing trophic flow from detritus and primary producers to herbivores, and by increasing the biomass of carnivores. Our results show how future climate change can potentially weaken marine food webs through reduced energy flow to higher trophic levels and a shift towards a more detritus-based system, leading to food web simplification and altered producer–consumer dynamics, both of which have important implications for the structuring of benthic communities. PMID:29315309

Hydrologically driven ecosystem processes determine the distribution and persistence of ecosystem-specialist predators under climate change.

PubMed

Carroll, Matthew J; Heinemeyer, Andreas; Pearce-Higgins, James W; Dennis, Peter; West, Chris; Holden, Joseph; Wallage, Zoe E; Thomas, Chris D

2015-07-31

Climate change has the capacity to alter physical and biological ecosystem processes, jeopardizing the survival of associated species. This is a particular concern in cool, wet northern peatlands that could experience warmer, drier conditions. Here we show that climate, ecosystem processes and food chains combine to influence the population performance of species in British blanket bogs. Our peatland process model accurately predicts water-table depth, which predicts abundance of craneflies (keystone invertebrates), which in turn predicts observed abundances and population persistence of three ecosystem-specialist bird species that feed on craneflies during the breeding season. Climate change projections suggest that falling water tables could cause 56-81% declines in cranefly abundance and, hence, 15-51% reductions in the abundances of these birds by 2051-2080. We conclude that physical (precipitation, temperature and topography), biophysical (evapotranspiration and desiccation of invertebrates) and ecological (food chains) processes combine to determine the distributions and survival of ecosystem-specialist predators.

Hydrologically driven ecosystem processes determine the distribution and persistence of ecosystem-specialist predators under climate change

PubMed Central

Carroll, Matthew J.; Heinemeyer, Andreas; Pearce-Higgins, James W.; Dennis, Peter; West, Chris; Holden, Joseph; Wallage, Zoe E.; Thomas, Chris D.

2015-01-01

Climate change has the capacity to alter physical and biological ecosystem processes, jeopardizing the survival of associated species. This is a particular concern in cool, wet northern peatlands that could experience warmer, drier conditions. Here we show that climate, ecosystem processes and food chains combine to influence the population performance of species in British blanket bogs. Our peatland process model accurately predicts water-table depth, which predicts abundance of craneflies (keystone invertebrates), which in turn predicts observed abundances and population persistence of three ecosystem-specialist bird species that feed on craneflies during the breeding season. Climate change projections suggest that falling water tables could cause 56–81% declines in cranefly abundance and, hence, 15–51% reductions in the abundances of these birds by 2051–2080. We conclude that physical (precipitation, temperature and topography), biophysical (evapotranspiration and desiccation of invertebrates) and ecological (food chains) processes combine to determine the distributions and survival of ecosystem-specialist predators. PMID:26227623

Global Sea Surface Temperature and Ecosystem Change Across the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Veenstra, T. J. T.; Bakker, V. B.; Sangiorgi, F.; Peterse, F.; Schouten, S.; Sluijs, A.

2016-12-01

Even though the term Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO; ca. 17 to 14 Ma) has been widely used in the literature since the early 1990's, almost no early-middle Miocene sea surface temperature (SST) proxy records have been published that support climate warming across its onset. Benthic (and diagenetically altered planktic) foram δ18O records show a decrease, suggesting (deep) ocean warming and/or Antarctic ice sheet melting. However, reliable absolute SST proxy records are absent from the tropics and very scarce in temperate and polar regions. This leaves the question if the warmth of the MMCO was truly global and how its onset relates to the widely recorded positive (Monterey) carbon isotope excursion and volcanism. Finally, it remains uncertain how marine ecosystems responded to this hypothesized warming. We present organic biomarker SST proxy records (Uk'37 and TEX86) spanning the MMCO for several locations in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean along a pole-to-pole transect, including Ocean Drilling Program Site 959 in the eastern Tropical Atlantic, ODP Site 643 in the Norwegian Sea, ODP Site 1007 on the Great Bahama Bank and Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Site U1352 off New Zealand. Additionally, we use marine palynology (mostly dinoflagellate cysts) to assess ecosystem change at these locations. The resulting spatial reconstruction of SST change shows that Middle Miocene warming was global. Nevertheless, the records also show distinct regional variability, including relatively large warming in the Norwegian Sea and a damped signal in the southern hemisphere, suggesting pronounced changes in ocean circulation. The onset of the MMCO was marked by prominent changes in ecological and depositional setting at the studied sites, likely also related to ocean circulation changes.

Biodiversity as a solution to mitigate climate change impacts on the functioning of forest ecosystems.

PubMed

Hisano, Masumi; Searle, Eric B; Chen, Han Y H

2018-02-01

Forest ecosystems are critical to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through carbon sequestration. However, climate change has affected forest ecosystem functioning in both negative and positive ways, and has led to shifts in species/functional diversity and losses in plant species diversity which may impair the positive effects of diversity on ecosystem functioning. Biodiversity may mitigate climate change impacts on (I) biodiversity itself, as more-diverse systems could be more resilient to climate change impacts, and (II) ecosystem functioning through the positive relationship between diversity and ecosystem functioning. By surveying the literature, we examined how climate change has affected forest ecosystem functioning and plant diversity. Based on the biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning (B→EF), we specifically address the potential for biodiversity to mitigate climate change impacts on forest ecosystem functioning. For this purpose, we formulate a concept whereby biodiversity may reduce the negative impacts or enhance the positive impacts of climate change on ecosystem functioning. Further B→EF studies on climate change in natural forests are encouraged to elucidate how biodiversity might influence ecosystem functioning. This may be achieved through the detailed scrutiny of large spatial/long temporal scale data sets, such as long-term forest inventories. Forest management strategies based on B→EF have strong potential for augmenting the effectiveness of the roles of forests in the mitigation of climate change impacts on ecosystem functioning. © 2017 Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Macroalgal blooms alter community structure and primary productivity in marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Lyons, Devin A; Arvanitidis, Christos; Blight, Andrew J; Chatzinikolaou, Eva; Guy-Haim, Tamar; Kotta, Jonne; Orav-Kotta, Helen; Queirós, Ana M; Rilov, Gil; Somerfield, Paul J; Crowe, Tasman P

2014-09-01

Eutrophication, coupled with loss of herbivory due to habitat degradation and overharvesting, has increased the frequency and severity of macroalgal blooms worldwide. Macroalgal blooms interfere with human activities in coastal areas, and sometimes necessitate costly algal removal programmes. They also have many detrimental effects on marine and estuarine ecosystems, including induction of hypoxia, release of toxic hydrogen sulphide into the sediments and atmosphere, and the loss of ecologically and economically important species. However, macroalgal blooms can also increase habitat complexity, provide organisms with food and shelter, and reduce other problems associated with eutrophication. These contrasting effects make their overall ecological impacts unclear. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the overall effects of macroalgal blooms on several key measures of ecosystem structure and functioning in marine ecosystems. We also evaluated some of the ecological and methodological factors that might explain the highly variable effects observed in different studies. Averaged across all studies, macroalgal blooms had negative effects on the abundance and species richness of marine organisms, but blooms by different algal taxa had different consequences, ranging from strong negative to strong positive effects. Blooms' effects on species richness also depended on the habitat where they occurred, with the strongest negative effects seen in sandy or muddy subtidal habitats and in the rocky intertidal. Invertebrate communities also appeared to be particularly sensitive to blooms, suffering reductions in their abundance, species richness, and diversity. The total net primary productivity, gross primary productivity, and respiration of benthic ecosystems were higher during macroalgal blooms, but blooms had negative effects on the productivity and respiration of other organisms. These results suggest that, in addition to their direct social and

Climate Change Vulnerability of Agro-Ecosystems: Does socio-economic factors matters?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Surendran Nair, S.; Preston, B. L.; King, A. W.; Mei, R.; Post, W. M.

2013-12-01

Climate variability and change has direct impacts on agriculture. Despite continual adaptation to climate as well as gains in technology innovation and adoption, agriculture is still vulnerable to changes in temperature and precipitation expected in coming decades. Generally, researchers use two major methodologies to understand the vulnerability of agro-ecosystems to climate change: process-based crop models and empirical models. However, these models are not yet designed to capture the influence of socioeconomic systems on agro-ecosystem processes and outcomes.. However, socioeconomic processes are an important factor driving agro-ecological responses to biophysical processes (climate, topography and soil), because of the role of human agency in mediating the response of agro-ecosystems to climate. We have developed a framework that integrates socioeconomic and biophysical characteristics of agro-ecosystems using cluster analysis and GIS tools. This framework has been applied to the U.S. Southeast to define unique socio-ecological domains for agriculture. The results demonstrate that socioeconomic characteristics are an important factor influencing agriculture production. These results suggest that the lack of attention to socioeconomic conditions and human agency in agro-ecological modeling creates a potential bias with respect to the representation of climate change impacts.

Vulnerability to climate-induced changes in ecosystem services of boreal forests

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Holmberg, Maria; Rankinen, Katri; Aalto, Tuula; Akujärvi, Anu; Nadir Arslan, Ali; Liski, Jari; Markkanen, Tiina; Mäkelä, Annikki; Peltoniemi, Mikko

2016-04-01

Boreal forests provide an array of ecosystem services. They regulate climate, and carbon, water and nutrient fluxes, and provide renewable raw material, food, and recreational possibilities. Rapid climate warming is projected for the boreal zone, and has already been observed in Finland, which sets these services at risk. MONIMET (LIFE12 ENV/FI/000409, 2.9.2013 - 1.9.2017) is a project funded by EU Life programme about Climate Change Indicators and Vulnerability of Boreal Zone Applying Innovative Observation and Modeling Techniques. The coordinating beneficiary of the project is the Finnish Meteorological Institute. Associated beneficiaries are the Natural Resources Institute Finland, the Finnish Environment Institute and the University of Helsinki. In the MONIMET project, we use state-of-the-art models and new monitoring methods to investigate the impacts of a warming climate on the provision of ecosystem services of boreal forests. This poster presents results on carbon storage in soil and assessment of drought indices, as a preparation for assessing the vulnerability of society to climate-induced changes in ecosystem services. The risk of decreasing provision of ecosystem services depends on the sensitivity of the ecosystem as well as its exposure to climate stress. The vulnerability of society, in turn, depends on the risk of decreasing provision of a certain service in combination with society's demand for that service. In the next phase, we will look for solutions to challenges relating to the quantification of the demand for ecosystem services and differences in spatial extent and resolution of the information on future supply and demand.

Climate change, cranes, and temperate floodplain ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

King, Sammy L.

2010-01-01

Floodplain ecosystems provide important habitat to cranes globally. Lateral, longitudinal, vertical, and temporal hydrologic connectivity in rivers is essential to maintaining the functions and values of these systems. Agricultural development, flood control, water diversions, dams, and other anthropogenic activities have greatly affected hydrologic connectivity of river systems worldwide and altered the functional capacity of these systems. Although the specific effects of climate change in any given area are unknown, increased intensity and frequency of flooding and droughts and increased air and water temperatures are among many potential effects that can act synergistically with existing human modifications in these systems to create even greater challenges in maintaining ecosystem productivity. In this paper, I review basic hydrologic and geomorphic processes of river systems and use three North American rivers (Guadalupe, Platte, and Rio Grande) that are important to cranes as case studies to illustrate the challenges facing managers tasked with balancing the needs of cranes and people in the face of an uncertain climatic future. Each river system has unique natural and anthropogenic characteristics that will affect conservation strategies. Mitigating the effects of climate change on river systems necessitates an understanding of river/floodplain/landscape linkages, which include people and their laws as well as existing floodplain ecosystem conditions.

CLANIMAE: Climatic and Anthropogenic Impacts on African Ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Verschuren, D.; André, L.; Mahy, G.; Cocquyt, C.; Plisnier, P.-D.; Gelorini, V.; Rumes, B.; Lebrun, J.; Bock, L.; Marchant, R.

2009-04-01

Global studies of historical land use focusing on the large-scale landscape change that can potentially affect global climate (via effects on surface albedo, aerosols, and the carbon cycle) have concluded that the impact of pre-colonial East African cultures on regional ecosystems was limited, due to very low mean population density. This contrasts with the paradigm in East African archaeology and paleoecology that the onset of anthropogenic deforestation started at least 2500 years ago, following the introduction of iron metallurgy by Bantu immigrants. This conflict highlights the present lack of real data on historical climate-environment-human interactions in East Africa, which are eminently relevant to sustainable natural resource management and biodiversity conservation in a future of continued population growth and global climate change. CLANIMAE responds to the urgent need of a correct long-term perspective to today's climate-environment-human interactions in East Africa, by reconstructing simultaneously the histories of past climate change and of vegetation and water-quality changes over the last 2500 years, through multi-disciplinary analysis of dated lake-sediment records. The climate reconstructions integrate information on biological, geochemical and sedimentological indicators of past changes in the water balance of the study lakes, which cover the climatological gradient from (sub-)humid western Uganda to semi-arid eastern Kenya. Reconstruction of past terrestrial vegetation dynamics is based on analyses of fossil plant pollen and phytoliths, plus the fossil spores of fungi associated with the excrements of large domestic animals as indicators of lake use by pastoralists. The evolution of water quality through time is reconstructed using silicon isotopes in diatom algae as proxy indicator for past phytoplankton productivity, and paleoecological analyses of fossil diatoms and aquatic macrophytes, following calibration of diatom and macrophyte species

Sensitivity of global terrestrial ecosystems to climate variability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seddon, Alistair W. R.; Macias-Fauria, Marc; Long, Peter R.; Benz, David; Willis, Kathy J.

2016-03-01

The identification of properties that contribute to the persistence and resilience of ecosystems despite climate change constitutes a research priority of global relevance. Here we present a novel, empirical approach to assess the relative sensitivity of ecosystems to climate variability, one property of resilience that builds on theoretical modelling work recognizing that systems closer to critical thresholds respond more sensitively to external perturbations. We develop a new metric, the vegetation sensitivity index, that identifies areas sensitive to climate variability over the past 14 years. The metric uses time series data derived from the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) enhanced vegetation index, and three climatic variables that drive vegetation productivity (air temperature, water availability and cloud cover). Underlying the analysis is an autoregressive modelling approach used to identify climate drivers of vegetation productivity on monthly timescales, in addition to regions with memory effects and reduced response rates to external forcing. We find ecologically sensitive regions with amplified responses to climate variability in the Arctic tundra, parts of the boreal forest belt, the tropical rainforest, alpine regions worldwide, steppe and prairie regions of central Asia and North and South America, the Caatinga deciduous forest in eastern South America, and eastern areas of Australia. Our study provides a quantitative methodology for assessing the relative response rate of ecosystems—be they natural or with a strong anthropogenic signature—to environmental variability, which is the first step towards addressing why some regions appear to be more sensitive than others, and what impact this has on the resilience of ecosystem service provision and human well-being.

Interdisciplinary knowledge exchange across scales in a globally changing marine environment.

PubMed

McDonald, Karlie S; Hobday, Alistair J; Fulton, Elizabeth A; Thompson, Peter A

2018-07-01

The effects of anthropogenic global environmental change on biotic and abiotic processes have been reported in aquatic systems across the world. Complex synergies between concurrent environmental stressors and the resilience of the system to regime shifts, which vary in space and time, determine the capacity for marine systems to maintain structure and function with global environmental change. Consequently, an interdisciplinary approach that facilitates the development of new methods for the exchange of knowledge between scientists across multiple scales is required to effectively understand, quantify and predict climate impacts on marine ecosystem services. We use a literature review to assess the limitations and assumptions of current pathways to exchange interdisciplinary knowledge and the transferability of research findings across spatial and temporal scales and levels of biological organization to advance scientific understanding of global environmental change in marine systems. We found that species-specific regional scale climate change research is most commonly published, and "supporting" is the ecosystem service most commonly referred to in publications. In addition, our paper outlines a trajectory for the future development of integrated climate change science for sustaining marine ecosystem services such as investment in interdisciplinary education and connectivity between disciplines. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Valuing biodiversity and ecosystem services: a useful way to manage and conserve marine resources?

PubMed

Cavanagh, Rachel D; Broszeit, Stefanie; Pilling, Graham M; Grant, Susie M; Murphy, Eugene J; Austen, Melanie C

2016-12-14

Valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) is widely recognized as a useful, though often controversial, approach to conservation and management. However, its use in the marine environment, hence evidence of its efficacy, lags behind that in terrestrial ecosystems. This largely reflects key challenges to marine conservation and management such as the practical difficulties in studying the ocean, complex governance issues and the historically-rooted separation of biodiversity conservation and resource management. Given these challenges together with the accelerating loss of marine biodiversity (and threats to the ES that this biodiversity supports), we ask whether valuation efforts for marine ecosystems are appropriate and effective. We compare three contrasting systems: the tropical Pacific, Southern Ocean and UK coastal seas. In doing so, we reveal a diversity in valuation approaches with different rates of progress and success. We also find a tendency to focus on specific ES (often the harvested species) rather than biodiversity. In light of our findings, we present a new conceptual view of valuation that should ideally be considered in decision-making. Accounting for the critical relationships between biodiversity and ES, together with an understanding of ecosystem structure and functioning, will enable the wider implications of marine conservation and management decisions to be evaluated. We recommend embedding valuation within existing management structures, rather than treating it as an alternative or additional mechanism. However, we caution that its uptake and efficacy will be compromised without the ability to develop and share best practice across regions. © 2016 The Authors.

Projecting supply and demand of hydrologic ecosystem services under future climate conditions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chiang, Li-Chi; Huang, Tao; Lee, Tsung-Yu

2014-05-01

Ecosystems provide essential goods and services, such as food, clean water, water purification, soil conservation and cultural services for human being. In a watershed, these water-related ecosystem goods and services can directly or indirectly benefit both local people and downstream beneficiaries through a reservoir. Water quality and quantity in a reservoir are of importance for agricultural, industrial and domestic uses. Under the impacts of climate and land use changes, both ecosystem service supply and demand will be affected by changes in precipitation patterns, temperature, urbanization and agricultural activities. However, the linkage between ecosystem service provisioning (ESP) and ecosystem service beneficiary (ESB), and scales of supply and demand of ecosystem services are not clear yet. Therefore, to investigate water-related ecosystem service supply under climate and land use change, we took the Xindian river watershed (303 km2) as a case study, where the Feitsui Reservoir provides hydro-power and daily domestic water use of 3,450,000 m3 for 3.46 million people in Taipei, Taiwan. We integrated a hydrological model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool, SWAT) and a land use change model (Conversion of Land Use and its Effects, CLUE-s) with future climate change scenarios derived from General Circulation Models (GCMs), to assess the changes in ecosystem service supply and demand at different hydrologic scales. The results will provide useful information for decision-making on future land use management and climate change adaptation strategies in the watersheds. Keywords: climate change, land use change, ecosystem service, watershed, scale

Experimenting with ecosystem interaction networks in search of threshold potentials in real-world marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Thrush, Simon F; Hewitt, Judi E; Parkes, Samantha; Lohrer, Andrew M; Pilditch, Conrad; Woodin, Sarah A; Wethey, David S; Chiantore, Mariachiara; Asnaghi, Valentina; De Juan, Silvia; Kraan, Casper; Rodil, Ivan; Savage, Candida; Van Colen, Carl

2014-06-01

Thresholds profoundly affect our understanding and management of ecosystem dynamics, but we have yet to develop practical techniques to assess the risk that thresholds will be crossed. Combining ecological knowledge of critical system interdependencies with a large-scale experiment, we tested for breaks in the ecosystem interaction network to identify threshold potential in real-world ecosystem dynamics. Our experiment with the bivalves Macomona liliana and Austrovenus stutchburyi on marine sandflats in New Zealand demonstrated that reductions in incident sunlight changed the interaction network between sediment biogeochemical fluxes, productivity, and macrofauna. By demonstrating loss of positive feedbacks and changes in the architecture of the network, we provide mechanistic evidence that stressors lead to break points in dynamics, which theory predicts predispose a system to a critical transition.

Improving Marine Ecosystem Models with Biochemical Tracers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pethybridge, Heidi R.; Choy, C. Anela; Polovina, Jeffrey J.; Fulton, Elizabeth A.

2018-01-01

Empirical data on food web dynamics and predator-prey interactions underpin ecosystem models, which are increasingly used to support strategic management of marine resources. These data have traditionally derived from stomach content analysis, but new and complementary forms of ecological data are increasingly available from biochemical tracer techniques. Extensive opportunities exist to improve the empirical robustness of ecosystem models through the incorporation of biochemical tracer data and derived indices, an area that is rapidly expanding because of advances in analytical developments and sophisticated statistical techniques. Here, we explore the trophic information required by ecosystem model frameworks (species, individual, and size based) and match them to the most commonly used biochemical tracers (bulk tissue and compound-specific stable isotopes, fatty acids, and trace elements). Key quantitative parameters derived from biochemical tracers include estimates of diet composition, niche width, and trophic position. Biochemical tracers also provide powerful insight into the spatial and temporal variability of food web structure and the characterization of dominant basal and microbial food web groups. A major challenge in incorporating biochemical tracer data into ecosystem models is scale and data type mismatches, which can be overcome with greater knowledge exchange and numerical approaches that transform, integrate, and visualize data.

Ecosystem vulnerability to climate change in the southeastern United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cartwright, Jennifer M.; Costanza, Jennifer

2016-08-11

Two recent investigations of climate-change vulnerability for 19 terrestrial, aquatic, riparian, and coastal ecosystems of the southeastern United States have identified a number of important considerations, including potential for changes in hydrology, disturbance regimes, and interspecies interactions. Complementary approaches using geospatial analysis and literature synthesis integrated information on ecosystem biogeography and biodiversity, climate projections, vegetation dynamics, soil and water characteristics, anthropogenic threats, conservation status, sea-level rise, and coastal flooding impacts. Across a diverse set of ecosystems—ranging in size from dozens of square meters to thousands of square kilometers—quantitative and qualitative assessments identified types of climate-change exposure, evaluated sensitivity, and explored potential adaptive capacity. These analyses highlighted key gaps in scientific understanding and suggested priorities for future research. Together, these studies help create a foundation for ecosystem-level analysis of climate-change vulnerability to support effective biodiversity conservation in the southeastern United States.

Diverse effects of invasive ecosystem engineers on marine biodiversity and ecosystem functions: A global review and meta-analysis.

PubMed

Guy-Haim, Tamar; Lyons, Devin A; Kotta, Jonne; Ojaveer, Henn; Queirós, Ana M; Chatzinikolaou, Eva; Arvanitidis, Christos; Como, Serena; Magni, Paolo; Blight, Andrew J; Orav-Kotta, Helen; Somerfield, Paul J; Crowe, Tasman P; Rilov, Gil

2018-03-01

Invasive ecosystem engineers (IEE) are potentially one of the most influential types of biological invaders. They are expected to have extensive ecological impacts by altering the physical-chemical structure of ecosystems, thereby changing the rules of existence for a broad range of resident biota. To test the generality of this expectation, we used a global systematic review and meta-analysis to examine IEE effects on the abundance of individual species and communities, biodiversity (using several indices) and ecosystem functions, focusing on marine and estuarine environments. We found that IEE had a significant effect (positive and negative) in most studies testing impacts on individual species, but the overall (cumulative) effect size was small and negative. Many individual studies showed strong IEE effects on community abundance and diversity, but the direction of effects was variable, leading to statistically non-significant overall effects in most categories. In contrast, there was a strong overall effect on most ecosystem functions we examined. IEE negatively affected metabolic functions and primary production, but positively affected nutrient flux, sedimentation and decomposition. We use the results to develop a conceptual model by highlighting pathways whereby IEE impact communities and ecosystem functions, and identify several sources of research bias in the IEE-related invasion literature. Only a few of the studies simultaneously quantified IEE effects on community/diversity and ecosystem functions. Therefore, understanding how IEE may alter biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships should be a primary focus of future studies of invasion biology. Moreover, the clear effects of IEE on ecosystem functions detected in our study suggest that scientists and environmental managers ought to examine how the effects of IEE might be manifested in the services that marine ecosystems provide to humans. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Climate change alters the structure of arctic marine food webs due to poleward shifts of boreal generalists.

PubMed

Kortsch, Susanne; Primicerio, Raul; Fossheim, Maria; Dolgov, Andrey V; Aschan, Michaela

2015-09-07

Climate-driven poleward shifts, leading to changes in species composition and relative abundances, have been recently documented in the Arctic. Among the fastest moving species are boreal generalist fish which are expected to affect arctic marine food web structure and ecosystem functioning substantially. Here, we address structural changes at the food web level induced by poleward shifts via topological network analysis of highly resolved boreal and arctic food webs of the Barents Sea. We detected considerable differences in structural properties and link configuration between the boreal and the arctic food webs, the latter being more modular and less connected. We found that a main characteristic of the boreal fish moving poleward into the arctic region of the Barents Sea is high generalism, a property that increases connectance and reduces modularity in the arctic marine food web. Our results reveal that habitats form natural boundaries for food web modules, and that generalists play an important functional role in coupling pelagic and benthic modules. We posit that these habitat couplers have the potential to promote the transfer of energy and matter between habitats, but also the spread of pertubations, thereby changing arctic marine food web structure considerably with implications for ecosystem dynamics and functioning. © 2015 The Authors.

Climate change alters the structure of arctic marine food webs due to poleward shifts of boreal generalists

PubMed Central

Kortsch, Susanne; Primicerio, Raul; Fossheim, Maria; Dolgov, Andrey V.; Aschan, Michaela

2015-01-01

Climate-driven poleward shifts, leading to changes in species composition and relative abundances, have been recently documented in the Arctic. Among the fastest moving species are boreal generalist fish which are expected to affect arctic marine food web structure and ecosystem functioning substantially. Here, we address structural changes at the food web level induced by poleward shifts via topological network analysis of highly resolved boreal and arctic food webs of the Barents Sea. We detected considerable differences in structural properties and link configuration between the boreal and the arctic food webs, the latter being more modular and less connected. We found that a main characteristic of the boreal fish moving poleward into the arctic region of the Barents Sea is high generalism, a property that increases connectance and reduces modularity in the arctic marine food web. Our results reveal that habitats form natural boundaries for food web modules, and that generalists play an important functional role in coupling pelagic and benthic modules. We posit that these habitat couplers have the potential to promote the transfer of energy and matter between habitats, but also the spread of pertubations, thereby changing arctic marine food web structure considerably with implications for ecosystem dynamics and functioning. PMID:26336179

Climate constrains lake community and ecosystem responses to introduced predators

PubMed Central

Symons, C. C.; Shurin, J. B.

2016-01-01

Human activities have resulted in rising temperatures and the introduction or extirpation of top predators worldwide. Both processes generate cascading impacts throughout food webs and can jeopardize important ecosystem services. We examined the impact of fish stocking on communities and ecosystems in California mountain lakes across an elevation (temperature and dissolved organic carbon) gradient to determine how trophic cascades and ecosystem function vary with climate. Here, we show that the impact of fish on the pelagic consumer-to-producer biomass ratio strengthened at low elevation, while invertebrate community composition and benthic ecosystem rates (periphyton production and litter decomposition) were most influenced by predators at high elevation. A warming climate may therefore alter the stability of lake ecosystems by shifting the strength of top-down control by introduced predators over food web structure and function.

An underwater light attenuation scheme for marine ecosystem models.

PubMed

Penta, Bradley; Lee, Zhongping; Kudela, Raphael M; Palacios, Sherry L; Gray, Deric J; Jolliff, Jason K; Shulman, Igor G

2008-10-13

Simulation of underwater light is essential for modeling marine ecosystems. A new model of underwater light attenuation is presented and compared with previous models. In situ data collected in Monterey Bay, CA. during September 2006 are used for validation. It is demonstrated that while the new light model is computationally simple and efficient it maintains accuracy and flexibility. When this light model is incorporated into an ecosystem model, the correlation between modeled and observed coastal chlorophyll is improved over an eight-year time period. While the simulation of a deep chlorophyll maximum demonstrates the effect of the new model at depth.

Unexpected Early Triassic marine ecosystem and the rise of the Modern evolutionary fauna

PubMed Central

Brayard, Arnaud; Krumenacker, L. J.; Botting, Joseph P.; Jenks, James F.; Bylund, Kevin G.; Fara, Emmanuel; Vennin, Emmanuelle; Olivier, Nicolas; Goudemand, Nicolas; Saucède, Thomas; Charbonnier, Sylvain; Romano, Carlo; Doguzhaeva, Larisa; Thuy, Ben; Hautmann, Michael; Stephen, Daniel A.; Thomazo, Christophe; Escarguel, Gilles

2017-01-01

In the wake of the end-Permian mass extinction, the Early Triassic (~251.9 to 247 million years ago) is portrayed as an environmentally unstable interval characterized by several biotic crises and heavily depauperate marine benthic ecosystems. We describe a new fossil assemblage—the Paris Biota—from the earliest Spathian (middle Olenekian, ~250.6 million years ago) of the Bear Lake area, southeastern Idaho, USA. This highly diversified assemblage documents a remarkably complex marine ecosystem including at least seven phyla and 20 distinct metazoan orders, along with algae. Most unexpectedly, it combines early Paleozoic and middle Mesozoic taxa previously unknown from the Triassic strata, among which are primitive Cambrian-Ordovician leptomitid sponges (a 200–million year Lazarus taxon) and gladius-bearing coleoid cephalopods, a poorly documented group before the Jurassic (~50 million years after the Early Triassic). Additionally, the crinoid and ophiuroid specimens show derived anatomical characters that were thought to have evolved much later. Unlike previous works that suggested a sluggish postcrisis recovery and a low diversity for the Early Triassic benthic organisms, the unexpected composition of this exceptional assemblage points toward an early and rapid post-Permian diversification for these clades. Overall, it illustrates a phylogenetically diverse, functionally complex, and trophically multileveled marine ecosystem, from primary producers up to top predators and potential scavengers. Hence, the Paris Biota highlights the key evolutionary position of Early Triassic fossil ecosystems in the transition from the Paleozoic to the Modern marine evolutionary fauna at the dawn of the Mesozoic era. PMID:28246643

Unexpected Early Triassic marine ecosystem and the rise of the Modern evolutionary fauna.

PubMed

Brayard, Arnaud; Krumenacker, L J; Botting, Joseph P; Jenks, James F; Bylund, Kevin G; Fara, Emmanuel; Vennin, Emmanuelle; Olivier, Nicolas; Goudemand, Nicolas; Saucède, Thomas; Charbonnier, Sylvain; Romano, Carlo; Doguzhaeva, Larisa; Thuy, Ben; Hautmann, Michael; Stephen, Daniel A; Thomazo, Christophe; Escarguel, Gilles

2017-02-01

In the wake of the end-Permian mass extinction, the Early Triassic (~251.9 to 247 million years ago) is portrayed as an environmentally unstable interval characterized by several biotic crises and heavily depauperate marine benthic ecosystems. We describe a new fossil assemblage-the Paris Biota-from the earliest Spathian (middle Olenekian, ~250.6 million years ago) of the Bear Lake area, southeastern Idaho, USA. This highly diversified assemblage documents a remarkably complex marine ecosystem including at least seven phyla and 20 distinct metazoan orders, along with algae. Most unexpectedly, it combines early Paleozoic and middle Mesozoic taxa previously unknown from the Triassic strata, among which are primitive Cambrian-Ordovician leptomitid sponges (a 200-million year Lazarus taxon) and gladius-bearing coleoid cephalopods, a poorly documented group before the Jurassic (~50 million years after the Early Triassic). Additionally, the crinoid and ophiuroid specimens show derived anatomical characters that were thought to have evolved much later. Unlike previous works that suggested a sluggish postcrisis recovery and a low diversity for the Early Triassic benthic organisms, the unexpected composition of this exceptional assemblage points toward an early and rapid post-Permian diversification for these clades. Overall, it illustrates a phylogenetically diverse, functionally complex, and trophically multileveled marine ecosystem, from primary producers up to top predators and potential scavengers. Hence, the Paris Biota highlights the key evolutionary position of Early Triassic fossil ecosystems in the transition from the Paleozoic to the Modern marine evolutionary fauna at the dawn of the Mesozoic era.

Environmental and Ecological Effects of Climate Change on Venomous Marine and Amphibious Species in the Wilderness.

PubMed

Needleman, Robert K; Neylan, Isabelle P; Erickson, Timothy B

2018-06-25

Recent analyses of data show a warming trend in global average air and sea surface ocean temperatures. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, the sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased. This article will focus on climate change and projected effects on venomous marine and amphibious creatures with the potential impact on human health. Retrospective analysis of environmental, ecological, and medical literature with a focus on climate change, toxinology, and future modeling specific to venomous aquatic and amphibious creatures. Species included venomous jellyfish, poisonous fish, crown-of-thorns starfish, sea snakes, and toxic frogs. In several projected scenarios, rising temperatures, weather extremes, and shifts in seasons will increase poisonous population numbers, particularly with certain marine creatures like jellyfish and crown-of-thorns starfish. Habitat expansions by lionfish and sea snakes are projected to occur. These phenomena, along with increases in human populations and coastal development will likely increase human-animal encounters. Other species, particularly amphibious toxic frogs, are declining rapidly due to their sensitivity to any temperature change or subtle alterations in the stability of their environment. If temperatures continue to rise to record levels over the next decades, it is predicted that the populations of these once plentiful and critically important animals to the aquatic ecosystem will decline and their geographic distributions will shrink. Review of the literature investigating the effect and forecasts of climate change on venomous marine and amphibious creatures has demonstrated that temperature extremes and changes to climatic norms will likely have a dramatic effect on these toxicological organisms. The effects of climate change on these species through temperature alteration and rising coastal waters will influence each species differently

Resilience and stability of a pelagic marine ecosystem

PubMed Central

Lindegren, Martin; Checkley, David M.; Ohman, Mark D.; Koslow, J. Anthony; Goericke, Ralf

2016-01-01

The accelerating loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services worldwide has accentuated a long-standing debate on the role of diversity in stabilizing ecological communities and has given rise to a field of research on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF). Although broad consensus has been reached regarding the positive BEF relationship, a number of important challenges remain unanswered. These primarily concern the underlying mechanisms by which diversity increases resilience and community stability, particularly the relative importance of statistical averaging and functional complementarity. Our understanding of these mechanisms relies heavily on theoretical and experimental studies, yet the degree to which theory adequately explains the dynamics and stability of natural ecosystems is largely unknown, especially in marine ecosystems. Using modelling and a unique 60-year dataset covering multiple trophic levels, we show that the pronounced multi-decadal variability of the Southern California Current System (SCCS) does not represent fundamental changes in ecosystem functioning, but a linear response to key environmental drivers channelled through bottom-up and physical control. Furthermore, we show strong temporal asynchrony between key species or functional groups within multiple trophic levels caused by opposite responses to these drivers. We argue that functional complementarity is the primary mechanism reducing community variability and promoting resilience and stability in the SCCS. PMID:26763697

Human activities and climate variability drive fast-paced change across the world's estuarine-coastal ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cloern, James E.; Abreu, Paulo C.; Carstensen, Jacob; Chauvaud, Laurent; Elmgren, Ragnar; Grall, Jacques; Greening, Holly; Johansson, John O.R.; Kahru, Mati; Sherwood, Edward T.; Xu, Jie; Yin, Kedong

2016-01-01

Time series of environmental measurements are essential for detecting, measuring and understanding changes in the Earth system and its biological communities. Observational series have accumulated over the past 2–5 decades from measurements across the world's estuaries, bays, lagoons, inland seas and shelf waters influenced by runoff. We synthesize information contained in these time series to develop a global view of changes occurring in marine systems influenced by connectivity to land. Our review is organized around four themes: (i) human activities as drivers of change; (ii) variability of the climate system as a driver of change; (iii) successes, disappointments and challenges of managing change at the sea-land interface; and (iv) discoveries made from observations over time. Multidecadal time series reveal that many of the world's estuarine–coastal ecosystems are in a continuing state of change, and the pace of change is faster than we could have imagined a decade ago. Some have been transformed into novel ecosystems with habitats, biogeochemistry and biological communities outside the natural range of variability. Change takes many forms including linear and nonlinear trends, abrupt state changes and oscillations. The challenge of managing change is daunting in the coastal zone where diverse human pressures are concentrated and intersect with different responses to climate variability over land and over ocean basins. The pace of change in estuarine–coastal ecosystems will likely accelerate as the human population and economies continue to grow and as global climate change accelerates. Wise stewardship of the resources upon which we depend is critically dependent upon a continuing flow of information from observations to measure, understand and anticipate future changes along the world's coastlines.

Chapter 2. Vulnerability of marine turtles to climate change.

PubMed

Poloczanska, Elvira S; Limpus, Colin J; Hays, Graeme C

2009-01-01

Marine turtles are generally viewed as vulnerable to climate change because of the role that temperature plays in the sex determination of embryos, their long life history, long age-to-maturity and their highly migratory nature. Extant species of marine turtles probably arose during the mid-late Jurassic period (180-150 Mya) so have survived past shifts in climate, including glacial periods and warm events and therefore have some capacity for adaptation. The present-day rates of increase of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, and associated temperature changes, are very rapid; the capacity of marine turtles to adapt to this rapid change may be compromised by their relatively long generation times. We consider the evidence and likely consequences of present-day trends of climate change on marine turtles. Impacts are likely to be complex and may be positive as well as negative. For example, rising sea levels and increased storm intensity will negatively impact turtle nesting beaches; however, extreme storms can also lead to coastal accretion. Alteration of wind patterns and ocean currents will have implications for juveniles and adults in the open ocean. Warming temperatures are likely to impact directly all turtle life stages, such as the sex determination of embryos in the nest and growth rates. Warming of 2 degrees C could potentially result in a large shift in sex ratios towards females at many rookeries, although some populations may be resilient to warming if female biases remain within levels where population success is not impaired. Indirectly, climate change is likely to impact turtles through changes in food availability. The highly migratory nature of turtles and their ability to move considerable distances in short periods of time should increase their resilience to climate change. However, any such resilience of marine turtles to climate change is likely to be severely compromised by other anthropogenic influences. Development of coastlines may

Seabirds as indicators of marine ecosystems: Introduction: A modern role for seabirds as indicators

USGS Publications Warehouse

Piatt, John F.; Sydeman, William J.; Wiese, Francis

2007-01-01

A key requirement for implementing ecosystem-based management is to obtain timely information on significant fluctuations in the ecosystem (Botsford et al. 1997). However, obtaining all necessary information about physical and biological changes at appropriate temporal and spatial scales is a daunting task. Intuitively, one might assume that physical data are more important for the interpretation of ecosystem changes than biological data, but analyses of time series data suggest otherwise: physical data are more erratic and often confusing over the short term compared to biological data, which tend to fluctuate less on annual time scales (Hare & Mantua 2000). Even so, biological time-series may also be confusing when coexisting marine species respond differently to ecosystem variability. For example, while warming temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska following the 1976 to 1977 regime shift favored an increase in gadoids and flatfish, a variety of forage fish and pandalid shrimp species virtually disappeared (Anderson & Piatt 1999). Zooplankton communities in the Gulf of Alaska also demonstrated similar patterns of response (Francis et al. 1998). At the basin scale, favorable conditions for salmon in Alaska following the regime shift were matched inversely by poor conditions in the California Current (Francis et al. 1998). In marine birds, subtropical species increased, while subarctic ones decreased during a warming phase in the southern California Bight. Clearly, no single index can tell the whole story accurately. Multi-species, multi-region, and multi-trophic level approaches are needed to quantify fluctuations in marine ecosystem processes and in the distribution and abundance of its inhabitants, to determine critical parameter thresholds and to use this information in management and marine conservation.

Current status and future prospects for the assessment of marine and coastal ecosystem services: a systematic review.

PubMed

Liquete, Camino; Piroddi, Chiara; Drakou, Evangelia G; Gurney, Leigh; Katsanevakis, Stelios; Charef, Aymen; Egoh, Benis

2013-01-01

Research on ecosystem services has grown exponentially during the last decade. Most of the studies have focused on assessing and mapping terrestrial ecosystem services highlighting a knowledge gap on marine and coastal ecosystem services (MCES) and an urgent need to assess them. We reviewed and summarized existing scientific literature related to MCES with the aim of extracting and classifying indicators used to assess and map them. We found 145 papers that specifically assessed marine and coastal ecosystem services from which we extracted 476 indicators. Food provision, in particular fisheries, was the most extensively analyzed MCES while water purification and coastal protection were the most frequently studied regulating and maintenance services. Also recreation and tourism under the cultural services was relatively well assessed. We highlight knowledge gaps regarding the availability of indicators that measure the capacity, flow or benefit derived from each ecosystem service. The majority of the case studies was found in mangroves and coastal wetlands and was mainly concentrated in Europe and North America. Our systematic review highlighted the need of an improved ecosystem service classification for marine and coastal systems, which is herein proposed with definitions and links to previous classifications. This review summarizes the state of available information related to ecosystem services associated with marine and coastal ecosystems. The cataloging of MCES indicators and the integrated classification of MCES provided in this paper establish a background that can facilitate the planning and integration of future assessments. The final goal is to establish a consistent structure and populate it with information able to support the implementation of biodiversity conservation policies.

Climate change, ecosystem impacts, and management for Pacific salmon

Treesearch

D.E. Schindler; X. Augerot; E. Fleishman; N.J. Mantua; B. Riddell; M. Ruckelshaus; J. Seeb; M. Webster

2008-01-01

As climate change intensifies, there is increasing interest in developing models that reduce uncertainties in projections of global climate and refine these projections to finer spatial scales. Forecasts of climate impacts on ecosystems are far more challenging and their uncertainties even larger because of a limited understanding of physical controls on biological...

Enabling the Integrated Assessment of Large Marine Ecosystems: Informatics to the Forefront of Science-Based Decision Support

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Di Stefano, M.; Fox, P. A.; Beaulieu, S. E.; Maffei, A. R.; West, P.; Hare, J. A.

2012-12-01

Integrated assessments of large marine ecosystems require the understanding of interactions between environmental, ecological, and socio-economic factors that affect production and utilization of marine natural resources. Assessing the functioning of complex coupled natural-human systems calls for collaboration between natural and social scientists across disciplinary and national boundaries. We are developing a platform to implement and sustain informatics solutions for these applications, providing interoperability among very diverse and heterogeneous data and information sources, as well as multi-disciplinary organizations and people. We have partnered with NOAA NMFS scientists to facilitate the deployment of an integrated ecosystem approach to management in the Northeast U.S. (NES) and California Current Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs). Our platform will facilitate the collaboration and knowledge sharing among NMFS natural and social scientists, promoting community participation in integrating data, models, and knowledge. Here, we present collaborative software tools developed to aid the production of the Ecosystem Status Report (ESR) for the NES LME. The ESR addresses the D-P-S portion of the DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response) management framework: reporting data, indicators, and information products for climate drivers, physical and human (fisheries) pressures, and ecosystem state (primary and secondary production and higher trophic levels). We are developing our tools in open-source software, with the main tool based on a web application capable of providing the ability to work on multiple data types from a variety of sources, providing an effective way to share the source code used to generate data products and associated metadata as well as track workflow provenance to allow in the reproducibility of a data product. Our platform retrieves data, conducts standard analyses, reports data quality and other standardized metadata, provides iterative

Ecosystem Pen Pals: Using Place-Based Marine Science and Culture to Connect Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiener, Carlie S.; Matsumoto, Karen

2014-01-01

The marine environment provides a unique context for students to explore both natural and cultural connections. This paper reports preliminary findings on Ecosystem Pen Pals, an ocean literacy program for 4th and 5th graders focused on using a pen pal model for integrating traditional ecological knowledge into marine science. Surveys with…

Disturbances catalyze the adaptation of forest ecosystems to changing climate conditions

PubMed Central

Thom, Dominik; Rammer, Werner; Seidl, Rupert

2016-01-01

The rates of anthropogenic climate change substantially exceed those at which forest ecosystems – dominated by immobile, long-lived organisms – are able to adapt. The resulting maladaptation of forests has potentially detrimental effects on ecosystem functioning. Furthermore, as many forest-dwelling species are highly dependent on the prevailing tree species, a delayed response of the latter to a changing climate can contribute to an extinction debt and mask climate-induced biodiversity loss. However, climate change will likely also intensify forest disturbances. Here, we tested the hypothesis that disturbances foster the reorganization of ecosystems and catalyze the adaptation of forest composition to climate change. Our specific objectives were (i) to quantify the rate of autonomous forest adaptation to climate change, (ii) examine the role of disturbance in the adaptation process, and (iii) investigate spatial differences in climate-induced species turnover in an unmanaged mountain forest landscape (Kalkalpen National Park, Austria). Simulations with a process-based forest landscape model were performed for 36 unique combinations of climate and disturbance scenarios over 1000 years. We found that climate change strongly favored European beech and oak species (currently prevailing in mid- to low-elevation areas), with novel species associations emerging on the landscape. Yet, it took between 357 and 706 years before the landscape attained a dynamic equilibrium with the climate system. Disturbances generally catalyzed adaptation and decreased the time needed to attain equilibrium by up to 211 years. However, while increasing disturbance frequency and severity accelerated adaptation, increasing disturbance size had the opposite effect. Spatial analyses suggest that particularly the lowest and highest elevation areas will be hotspots of future species change. We conclude that the growing maladaptation of forests to climate and the long lead times of autonomous

The Sea Around Us Project: documenting and communicating global fisheries impacts on marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Pauly, Daniel

2007-06-01

The Sea Around Us Project, initiated by the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia, PA, and located at the Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, started in mid 1999. Its goal was (and still is) to investigate the impact of fisheries on marine ecosystems and to propose policies to mitigate these impacts. Although conceived as a global activity, the project first emphasized the data-rich North Atlantic as a test bed for developing its approaches, which rely on mapping of catch data and indicators of ecosystem health derived from the analysis of long catch time series data. Initial achievements included mapping the decline, throughout the North Atlantic basin, of high-trophic level fishes from 1900 to the present and the presentation of compelling evidence of change in the functioning of the North Atlantic ecosystems, summarized in a 2003 book. The Central and South Atlantic were the next basins to be tackled, with emphasis on the distant-water fleet off West Africa, culminating in a major conference in Dakar, Senegal, in 2002. The project then emphasized the North Pacific, Antarctica, and marine mammals and the multiplicity of tropical Indo-Pacific fisheries before it turned completely global, with all our major analyses and reports (e.g., on the interactions between marine mammals and fisheries, on fuel consumption by fleets, on the catches of small-scale fisheries, on subsidies to fisheries) being based on global studies. Broadly, the work of the project is aimed at a reappraisal of fisheries, from the benign activity that many interested people still perceive them to be, to a realization that they have become the driver for massive loss of biodiversity in the ocean. Moreover, the emphasis on global estimates (rather than local estimates of dubious generality) has allowed the project to contribute to various global initiatives (e.g., developing the Marine Trophic Index for the Convention on Biological Diversity, quantifying marine

Testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in Antarctica.

PubMed

Melbourne-Thomas, Jessica; Constable, Andrew; Wotherspoon, Simon; Raymond, Ben

2013-01-01

Antarctic marine ecosystems have undergone significant changes as a result of human activities in the past and are now responding in varied and often complicated ways to climate change impacts. Recent years have seen the emergence of large-scale mechanistic explanations-or "paradigms of change"-that attempt to synthesize our understanding of past and current changes. In many cases, these paradigms are based on observations that are spatially and temporally patchy. The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), one of Earth's most rapidly changing regions, has been an area of particular research focus. A recently proposed mechanistic explanation for observed changes in the WAP region relates changes in penguin populations to variability in krill biomass and regional warming. While this scheme is attractive for its simplicity and chronology, it may not account for complex spatio-temporal processes that drive ecosystem dynamics in the region. It might also be difficult to apply to other Antarctic regions that are experiencing some, though not all, of the changes documented for the WAP. We use qualitative network models of differing levels of complexity to test paradigms of change for the WAP ecosystem. Importantly, our approach captures the emergent effects of feedback processes in complex ecological networks and provides a means to identify and incorporate uncertain linkages between network elements. Our findings highlight key areas of uncertainty in the drivers of documented trends, and suggest that a greater level of model complexity is needed in devising explanations for ecosystem change in the Southern Ocean. We suggest that our network approach to evaluating a recent and widely cited paradigm of change for the Antarctic region could be broadly applied in hypothesis testing for other regions and research fields.

Testing Paradigms of Ecosystem Change under Climate Warming in Antarctica

PubMed Central

Melbourne-Thomas, Jessica; Constable, Andrew; Wotherspoon, Simon; Raymond, Ben

2013-01-01

Antarctic marine ecosystems have undergone significant changes as a result of human activities in the past and are now responding in varied and often complicated ways to climate change impacts. Recent years have seen the emergence of large-scale mechanistic explanations–or “paradigms of change”–that attempt to synthesize our understanding of past and current changes. In many cases, these paradigms are based on observations that are spatially and temporally patchy. The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), one of Earth’s most rapidly changing regions, has been an area of particular research focus. A recently proposed mechanistic explanation for observed changes in the WAP region relates changes in penguin populations to variability in krill biomass and regional warming. While this scheme is attractive for its simplicity and chronology, it may not account for complex spatio-temporal processes that drive ecosystem dynamics in the region. It might also be difficult to apply to other Antarctic regions that are experiencing some, though not all, of the changes documented for the WAP. We use qualitative network models of differing levels of complexity to test paradigms of change for the WAP ecosystem. Importantly, our approach captures the emergent effects of feedback processes in complex ecological networks and provides a means to identify and incorporate uncertain linkages between network elements. Our findings highlight key areas of uncertainty in the drivers of documented trends, and suggest that a greater level of model complexity is needed in devising explanations for ecosystem change in the Southern Ocean. We suggest that our network approach to evaluating a recent and widely cited paradigm of change for the Antarctic region could be broadly applied in hypothesis testing for other regions and research fields. PMID:23405116

Assessment of the impact of increased solar ultraviolet radiation upon marine ecosystems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vandyke, H.; Worrest, R. C.

1976-01-01

Data was provided to assess the potential impact upon marine ecosystems if space shuttle operations contribute to a reduction of the stratospheric ozone layer. The potential for irreversible damage to the productivity, structure and/or functioning of a model estuarine ecosystem by increased UV-B radiation was established. The sensitivity of key community components (the primary producers) to increased UV-B radiation was delineated.

Marine planktonic microbes survived climatic instabilities in the past

PubMed Central

Cermeño, Pedro

2012-01-01

In the geological past, changes in climate and tectonic activity are thought to have spurred the tempo of evolutionary change among major taxonomic groups of plants and animals. However, the extent to which these historical contingencies increased the risk of extinction of microbial plankton species remains largely unknown. Here, I analyse fossil records of marine planktonic diatoms and calcareous nannoplankton over the past 65 million years from the world oceans and show that the probability of species' extinction is not correlated with secular changes in climatic instability. Further supporting these results, analyses of genera survivorship curves based on fossil data concurred with the predictions of a birth–death model that simulates the extinction of genera through time assuming stochastically constant rates of speciation and extinction. However, my results also show that these marine microbes responded to exceptional climatic contingencies in a manner that appears to have promoted net diversification. These results highlight the ability of marine planktonic microbes to survive climatic instabilities in the geological past, and point to different mechanisms underlying the processes of speciation and extinction in these micro-organisms. PMID:21775329

Seventy-one important questions for the conservation of marine biodiversity.

PubMed

Parsons, E C M; Favaro, Brett; Aguirre, A Alonso; Bauer, Amy L; Blight, Louise K; Cigliano, John A; Coleman, Melinda A; Côté, Isabelle M; Draheim, Megan; Fletcher, Stephen; Foley, Melissa M; Jefferson, Rebecca; Jones, Miranda C; Kelaher, Brendan P; Lundquist, Carolyn J; McCarthy, Julie-Beth; Nelson, Anne; Patterson, Katheryn; Walsh, Leslie; Wright, Andrew J; Sutherland, William J

2014-10-01

The ocean provides food, economic activity, and cultural value for a large proportion of humanity. Our knowledge of marine ecosystems lags behind that of terrestrial ecosystems, limiting effective protection of marine resources. We describe the outcome of 2 workshops in 2011 and 2012 to establish a list of important questions, which, if answered, would substantially improve our ability to conserve and manage the world's marine resources. Participants included individuals from academia, government, and nongovernment organizations with broad experience across disciplines, marine ecosystems, and countries that vary in levels of development. Contributors from the fields of science, conservation, industry, and government submitted questions to our workshops, which we distilled into a list of priority research questions. Through this process, we identified 71 key questions. We grouped these into 8 subject categories, each pertaining to a broad component of marine conservation: fisheries, climate change, other anthropogenic threats, ecosystems, marine citizenship, policy, societal and cultural considerations, and scientific enterprise. Our questions address many issues that are specific to marine conservation, and will serve as a road map to funders and researchers to develop programs that can greatly benefit marine conservation. © 2014 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Society for the Study of Evolution.

Identification, definition and quantification of goods and services provided by marine biodiversity: implications for the ecosystem approach.

PubMed

Beaumont, N J; Austen, M C; Atkins, J P; Burdon, D; Degraer, S; Dentinho, T P; Derous, S; Holm, P; Horton, T; van Ierland, E; Marboe, A H; Starkey, D J; Townsend, M; Zarzycki, T

2007-03-01

This paper identifies and defines ecosystem goods and services provided by marine biodiversity. Case studies have been used to provide an insight into the practical issues associated with the assessment of marine ecosystem goods and services at specific locations. The aim of this research was to validate the definitions of goods and services, and to identify knowledge gaps and likely difficulties of quantifying the goods and services. A validated theoretical framework for the assessment of goods and services is detailed, and examples of the goods and services at a variety of case study areas are documented. These results will enable future assessments of marine ecosystem goods and services. It is concluded that the utilisation of this goods and services approach has the capacity to play a fundamental role in the Ecosystem Approach, by enabling the pressures and demands of society, the economy and the environment to be integrated into environmental management.

Arctic marine ecosystem contamination.

PubMed

Muir, D C; Wagemann, R; Hargrave, B T; Thomas, D J; Peakall, D B; Norstrom, R J

1992-07-15

The current state of knowledge of levels, spatial and temporal trends of contaminants in the Arctic marine ecosystem varies greatly among pollutants and among environmental compartments. Levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine (OC) pesticides and some heavy metals such as mercury and lead, in Arctic marine mammals and fish are relatively well documented because of the need for comparisons with biota in more polluted environments and interest in the contamination of native diets. Levels of heavy metals, alkanes, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and OCs in the Arctic Ocean are comparable to uncontaminated ocean waters in the mid-latitudes. But concentrations of alpha- and gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane (HCHs) are higher in northern waters far removed from local sources, possibly because lower water temperature reduces transfer to the atmosphere. Bioaccumulation of OCs and heavy metals in Arctic marine food chains begins with epontic ice algae or phytoplankton in surface waters. Polychlorinated camphenes (PCC), PCBs, DDT- and chlordane-related compounds are the major OCs in marine fish, mammals and seabirds. Mean concentrations of most PCBs and OC pesticides in ringed seal (Phoca hispida) and polar bear (Ursus maritimus) populations in the Canadian Arctic are quite similar indicating a uniform geographic distribution of contamination, although alpha-HCH showed a distinct latitudinal gradient in bears due to higher levels in zones influenced by continental runoff. Ringed seals from Spitzbergen have higher levels of PCBs, total DDT and polychlorinated dioxins/furans (PCDD/PCDFs). In contrast to other OCs, PCDD/PCDFs in Canadian Arctic ringed seals and polar bears were higher in the east/central Arctic than at more southerly locations. Remarkably high cadmium levels are found in kidney and liver of narwhal (Monodons monoceros) from western Baffin Bay (mean of 63.5 micrograms g-1) and western Greenland waters (median of 39.5 micrograms g-1). Mercury

Current Status and Future Prospects for the Assessment of Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Liquete, Camino; Piroddi, Chiara; Drakou, Evangelia G.; Gurney, Leigh; Katsanevakis, Stelios; Charef, Aymen; Egoh, Benis

2013-01-01

Background Research on ecosystem services has grown exponentially during the last decade. Most of the studies have focused on assessing and mapping terrestrial ecosystem services highlighting a knowledge gap on marine and coastal ecosystem services (MCES) and an urgent need to assess them. Methodology/Principal Findings We reviewed and summarized existing scientific literature related to MCES with the aim of extracting and classifying indicators used to assess and map them. We found 145 papers that specifically assessed marine and coastal ecosystem services from which we extracted 476 indicators. Food provision, in particular fisheries, was the most extensively analyzed MCES while water purification and coastal protection were the most frequently studied regulating and maintenance services. Also recreation and tourism under the cultural services was relatively well assessed. We highlight knowledge gaps regarding the availability of indicators that measure the capacity, flow or benefit derived from each ecosystem service. The majority of the case studies was found in mangroves and coastal wetlands and was mainly concentrated in Europe and North America. Our systematic review highlighted the need of an improved ecosystem service classification for marine and coastal systems, which is herein proposed with definitions and links to previous classifications. Conclusions/Significance This review summarizes the state of available information related to ecosystem services associated with marine and coastal ecosystems. The cataloging of MCES indicators and the integrated classification of MCES provided in this paper establish a background that can facilitate the planning and integration of future assessments. The final goal is to establish a consistent structure and populate it with information able to support the implementation of biodiversity conservation policies. PMID:23844080

Montane ecosystem productivity responds more to global circulation patterns than climatic trends.

PubMed

Desai, A R; Wohlfahrt, G; Zeeman, M J; Katata, G; Eugster, W; Montagnani, L; Gianelle, D; Mauder, M; Schmid, H-P

2016-02-01

Regional ecosystem productivity is highly sensitive to inter-annual climate variability, both within and outside the primary carbon uptake period. However, Earth system models lack sufficient spatial scales and ecosystem processes to resolve how these processes may change in a warming climate. Here, we show, how for the European Alps, mid-latitude Atlantic ocean winter circulation anomalies drive high-altitude summer forest and grassland productivity, through feedbacks among orographic wind circulation patterns, snowfall, winter and spring temperatures, and vegetation activity. Therefore, to understand future global climate change influence to regional ecosystem productivity, Earth systems models need to focus on improvements towards topographic downscaling of changes in regional atmospheric circulation patterns and to lagged responses in vegetation dynamics to non-growing season climate anomalies.

Montane ecosystem productivity responds more to global circulation patterns than climatic trends

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Desai, A. R.; Wohlfahrt, G.; Zeeman, M. J.; Katata, G.; Eugster, W.; Montagnani, L.; Gianelle, D.; Mauder, M.; Schmid, H.-P.

2016-02-01

Regional ecosystem productivity is highly sensitive to inter-annual climate variability, both within and outside the primary carbon uptake period. However, Earth system models lack sufficient spatial scales and ecosystem processes to resolve how these processes may change in a warming climate. Here, we show, how for the European Alps, mid-latitude Atlantic ocean winter circulation anomalies drive high-altitude summer forest and grassland productivity, through feedbacks among orographic wind circulation patterns, snowfall, winter and spring temperatures, and vegetation activity. Therefore, to understand future global climate change influence to regional ecosystem productivity, Earth systems models need to focus on improvements towards topographic downscaling of changes in regional atmospheric circulation patterns and to lagged responses in vegetation dynamics to non-growing season climate anomalies.

Impacts of climate change on prioritizing conservation areas of hydrological ecosystem services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lien, Wan Yu; Lin, Yu Pin

2015-04-01

Ecosystem services (ESs) including hydrological services play important roles in our daily life and provide a lot of benefits for human beings from ecological systems. The systems and their services may be threatened by climate change from global to local scales. We herein developed a systematic approach to assess the impacts of climate change on the hydrological ecosystem services, such as water yield, nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorous) retention, and soil retention in a watershed in Northern Taiwan. We first used an ecosystem service evaluation model, InVEST, to estimate the amount and spatial patterns of annual and monthly hydrological ecosystem services under historical weather data, and different climate change scenarios based on five GMSs. The monthly and annual spatiotemporal variations of the ESs were analyzed in this study. Finally, the multiple estimated ESs were considered as the protection conservation targets and regarded as the input data of the systematic conservation planning software, Zonation, to systematically prioritize reserve areas of the ESs under the climate change scenarios. The ES estimation results indicated that the increasing rainfall in wet season leads to the higher water yield and results in the higher sediment and nutrient export indirectly. The Zonation successfully fielded conservation priorities of the ESs. The conservation priorities of the ESs significantly varied spatially and monthly under the climate change scenarios. The ESs results also indicated that the areas where ESs values and conservation priorities with low resilience under climate change should be considered as high priority protected area to ensure the hydrological services in future. Our proposed approach is a novel systematic approach which can be applied to assess impacts of climate change on spatiotemporal variations of ESs as well as prioritize protected area of the ESs under various climate change scenarios. Keyword: climate change, ecosystem service

Structure, functioning, and cumulative stressors of Mediterranean deep-sea ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tecchio, Samuele; Coll, Marta; Sardà, Francisco

2015-06-01

Environmental stressors, such as climate fluctuations, and anthropogenic stressors, such as fishing, are of major concern for the management of deep-sea ecosystems. Deep-water habitats are limited by primary productivity and are mainly dependent on the vertical input of organic matter from the surface. Global change over the latest decades is imparting variations in primary productivity levels across oceans, and thus it has an impact on the amount of organic matter landing on the deep seafloor. In addition, anthropogenic impacts are now reaching the deep ocean. The Mediterranean Sea, the largest enclosed basin on the planet, is not an exception. However, ecosystem-level studies of response to varying food input and anthropogenic stressors on deep-sea ecosystems are still scant. We present here a comparative ecological network analysis of three food webs of the deep Mediterranean Sea, with contrasting trophic structure. After modelling the flows of these food webs with the Ecopath with Ecosim approach, we compared indicators of network structure and functioning. We then developed temporal dynamic simulations varying the organic matter input to evaluate its potential effect. Results show that, following the west-to-east gradient in the Mediterranean Sea of marine snow input, organic matter recycling increases, net production decreases to negative values and trophic organisation is overall reduced. The levels of food-web activity followed the gradient of organic matter availability at the seafloor, confirming that deep-water ecosystems directly depend on marine snow and are therefore influenced by variations of energy input, such as climate-driven changes. In addition, simulations of varying marine snow arrival at the seafloor, combined with the hypothesis of a possible fishery expansion on the lower continental slope in the western basin, evidence that the trawling fishery may pose an impact which could be an order of magnitude stronger than a climate

Incorporating climate change into ecosystem service assessments and decisions: a review.

PubMed

Runting, Rebecca K; Bryan, Brett A; Dee, Laura E; Maseyk, Fleur J F; Mandle, Lisa; Hamel, Perrine; Wilson, Kerrie A; Yetka, Kathleen; Possingham, Hugh P; Rhodes, Jonathan R

2017-01-01

Climate change is having a significant impact on ecosystem services and is likely to become increasingly important as this phenomenon intensifies. Future impacts can be difficult to assess as they often involve long timescales, dynamic systems with high uncertainties, and are typically confounded by other drivers of change. Despite a growing literature on climate change impacts on ecosystem services, no quantitative syntheses exist. Hence, we lack an overarching understanding of the impacts of climate change, how they are being assessed, and the extent to which other drivers, uncertainties, and decision making are incorporated. To address this, we systematically reviewed the peer-reviewed literature that assesses climate change impacts on ecosystem services at subglobal scales. We found that the impact of climate change on most types of services was predominantly negative (59% negative, 24% mixed, 4% neutral, 13% positive), but varied across services, drivers, and assessment methods. Although uncertainty was usually incorporated, there were substantial gaps in the sources of uncertainty included, along with the methods used to incorporate them. We found that relatively few studies integrated decision making, and even fewer studies aimed to identify solutions that were robust to uncertainty. For management or policy to ensure the delivery of ecosystem services, integrated approaches that incorporate multiple drivers of change and account for multiple sources of uncertainty are needed. This is undoubtedly a challenging task, but ignoring these complexities can result in misleading assessments of the impacts of climate change, suboptimal management outcomes, and the inefficient allocation of resources for climate adaptation. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

It remains unclear whether biodiversity buffers ecosystems against extreme climate events, which are becoming increasingly frequent worldwide. Although early results suggested that biodiversity might provide both resistance and resilience (sensu rapid recovery) of ecosystem productivity to drought, ...

Potential consequences of climate change for primary production and fish production in large marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Blanchard, Julia L; Jennings, Simon; Holmes, Robert; Harle, James; Merino, Gorka; Allen, J Icarus; Holt, Jason; Dulvy, Nicholas K; Barange, Manuel

2012-11-05

Existing methods to predict the effects of climate change on the biomass and production of marine communities are predicated on modelling the interactions and dynamics of individual species, a very challenging approach when interactions and distributions are changing and little is known about the ecological mechanisms driving the responses of many species. An informative parallel approach is to develop size-based methods. These capture the properties of food webs that describe energy flux and production at a particular size, independent of species' ecology. We couple a physical-biogeochemical model with a dynamic, size-based food web model to predict the future effects of climate change on fish biomass and production in 11 large regional shelf seas, with and without fishing effects. Changes in potential fish production are shown to most strongly mirror changes in phytoplankton production. We project declines of 30-60% in potential fish production across some important areas of tropical shelf and upwelling seas, most notably in the eastern Indo-Pacific, the northern Humboldt and the North Canary Current. Conversely, in some areas of the high latitude shelf seas, the production of pelagic predators was projected to increase by 28-89%.

Forest ecosystems, disturbance, and climate change in Washington State, USA

Treesearch

Jeremy S. Littell; Elaine E. Oneil; Donald McKenzie; Jeffrey A. Hicke; James A. Lutz; Robert A. Norheim; Marketa M. Elsner

2010-01-01

Climatic change is likely to affect Pacific Northwest (PNW) forests in several important ways. In this paper, we address the role of climate in four forest ecosystem processes and project the effects of future climatic change on these processes across Washington State. First, we relate Douglas-fir growth to climatic limitation and suggest that where Douglas-fir is...

Effect of interannual climate variability on carbon storage in Amazonian ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Tian, H.; Melillo, J.M.; Kicklighter, D.W.; McGuire, David A.; Helfrich, J. V. K.; Moore, B.; Vorosmarty, C.J.

1998-01-01

The Amazon Basin contains almost one-half of the world's undisturbed tropical evergreen forest as well as large areas of tropical savanna. The forests account for about 10 per cent of the world's terrestrial primary productivity and for a similar fraction of the carbon stored in land ecosystems, and short-term field measurements suggest that these ecosystems are globally important carbon sinks. But tropical land ecosystems have experienced substantial interannual climate variability owing to frequent El Nino episodes in recent decades. Of particular importance to climate change policy is how such climate variations, coupled with increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration, affect terrestrial carbon storage. Previous model analyses have demonstrated the importance of temperature in controlling carbon storage. Here we use a transient process-based biogeochemical model of terrestrial ecosystems to investigate interannual variations of carbon storage in undisturbed Amazonian ecosystems in response to climate variability and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration during the period 1980 to 1994. In El Nino years, which bring hot, dry weather to much of the Amazon region, the ecosystems act as a source of carbon to the atmosphere (up to 0.2 petagrams of carbon in 1987 and 1992). In other years, these ecosystems act as a carbon sink (up to 0.7 Pg C in 1981 and 1993). These fluxes are large; they compare to a 0.3 Pg C per year source to the atmosphere associated with deforestation in the Amazon Basin in the early 1990s. Soil moisture, which is affected by both precipitation and temperature, and which affects both plant and soil processes, appears to be an important control on carbon storage.

Shallow marine response to global climate change during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, Salisbury Embayment, USA

USGS Publications Warehouse

Self-Trail, Jean; Robinson, Marci M.; Bralower, Timothy J.; Sessa, Jocelyn A.; Hajek, Elizabeth A.; Kump, Lee R.; Trampush, Sheila M.; Willard, Debra A.; Edwards, Lucy E.; Powars, David S.; Wandless, Gregory A.

2017-01-01

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was an interval of extreme warmth that caused disruption of marine and terrestrial ecosystems on a global scale. Here we examine the sediments, flora, and fauna from an expanded section at Mattawoman Creek-Billingsley Road (MCBR) in Maryland and explore the impact of warming at a nearshore shallow marine (30–100 m water depth) site in the Salisbury Embayment. Observations indicate that at the onset of the PETM, the site abruptly shifted from an open marine to prodelta setting with increased terrestrial and fresh water input. Changes in microfossil biota suggest stratification of the water column and low-oxygen bottom water conditions in the earliest Eocene. Formation of authigenic carbonate through microbial diagenesis produced an unusually large bulk carbon isotope shift, while the magnitude of the corresponding signal from benthic foraminifera is similar to that at other marine sites. This proves that the landward increase in the magnitude of the carbon isotope excursion measured in bulk sediment is not due to a near instantaneous release of 12C-enriched CO2. We conclude that the MCBR site records nearshore marine response to global climate change that can be used as an analog for modern coastal response to global warming.

Shallow marine response to global climate change during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, Salisbury Embayment, USA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Self-Trail, Jean M.; Robinson, Marci M.; Bralower, Timothy J.; Sessa, Jocelyn A.; Hajek, Elizabeth A.; Kump, Lee R.; Trampush, Sheila M.; Willard, Debra A.; Edwards, Lucy E.; Powars, David S.; Wandless, Gregory A.

2017-07-01

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was an interval of extreme warmth that caused disruption of marine and terrestrial ecosystems on a global scale. Here we examine the sediments, flora, and fauna from an expanded section at Mattawoman Creek-Billingsley Road (MCBR) in Maryland and explore the impact of warming at a nearshore shallow marine (30-100 m water depth) site in the Salisbury Embayment. Observations indicate that at the onset of the PETM, the site abruptly shifted from an open marine to prodelta setting with increased terrestrial and fresh water input. Changes in microfossil biota suggest stratification of the water column and low-oxygen bottom water conditions in the earliest Eocene. Formation of authigenic carbonate through microbial diagenesis produced an unusually large bulk carbon isotope shift, while the magnitude of the corresponding signal from benthic foraminifera is similar to that at other marine sites. This proves that the landward increase in the magnitude of the carbon isotope excursion measured in bulk sediment is not due to a near instantaneous release of 12C-enriched CO2. We conclude that the MCBR site records nearshore marine response to global climate change that can be used as an analog for modern coastal response to global warming.

Reserve Design under Climate Change: From Land Facets Back to Ecosystem Representation

PubMed Central

Schneider, Richard R.; Bayne, Erin M.

2015-01-01

Ecosystem distributions are expected to shift as a result of global warming, raising concerns about the long-term utility of reserve systems based on coarse-filter ecosystem representation. We tested the extent to which proportional ecosystem representation targets would be maintained under a changing climate by projecting the distribution of the major ecosystems of Alberta, Canada, into the future using bioclimatic envelope models and then calculating the composition of reserves in successive periods. We used the Marxan conservation planning software to generate the suite of reserve systems for our test, varying the representation target and degree of reserve clumping. Our climate envelope projections for the 2080s indicate that virtually all reserves will, in time, be comprised of different ecosystem types than today. Nevertheless, our proportional targets for ecosystem representation were maintained across all time periods, with only minor exceptions. We hypothesize that this stability in representation arises because ecosystems may be serving as proxies for land facets, the stable abiotic landscape features that delineate major arenas of biological activity. The implication is that accommodating climate change may not require abandoning the conventional ecosystem-based approach to reserve design in favour of a strictly abiotic approach, since the two approaches may be largely synonymous. PMID:25978759

Climate change impacts on wildlife in a High Arctic archipelago - Svalbard, Norway.

PubMed

Descamps, Sébastien; Aars, Jon; Fuglei, Eva; Kovacs, Kit M; Lydersen, Christian; Pavlova, Olga; Pedersen, Åshild Ø; Ravolainen, Virve; Strøm, Hallvard

2017-02-01

The Arctic is warming more rapidly than other region on the planet, and the northern Barents Sea, including the Svalbard Archipelago, is experiencing the fastest temperature increases within the circumpolar Arctic, along with the highest rate of sea ice loss. These physical changes are affecting a broad array of resident Arctic organisms as well as some migrants that occupy the region seasonally. Herein, evidence of climate change impacts on terrestrial and marine wildlife in Svalbard is reviewed, with a focus on bird and mammal species. In the terrestrial ecosystem, increased winter air temperatures and concomitant increases in the frequency of 'rain-on-snow' events are one of the most important facets of climate change with respect to impacts on flora and fauna. Winter rain creates ice that blocks access to food for herbivores and synchronizes the population dynamics of the herbivore-predator guild. In the marine ecosystem, increases in sea temperature and reductions in sea ice are influencing the entire food web. These changes are affecting the foraging and breeding ecology of most marine birds and mammals and are associated with an increase in abundance of several temperate fish, seabird and marine mammal species. Our review indicates that even though a few species are benefiting from a warming climate, most Arctic endemic species in Svalbard are experiencing negative consequences induced by the warming environment. Our review emphasizes the tight relationships between the marine and terrestrial ecosystems in this High Arctic archipelago. Detecting changes in trophic relationships within and between these ecosystems requires long-term (multidecadal) demographic, population- and ecosystem-based monitoring, the results of which are necessary to set appropriate conservation priorities in relation to climate warming. © 2016 The Authors. Global Change Biology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Effectiveness of marine protected areas in managing the drivers of ecosystem change: a case of Mnazi Bay Marine Park, Tanzania.

PubMed

Machumu, Milali Ernest; Yakupitiyage, Amararatne

2013-04-01

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are being promoted in Tanzania to mitigate the drivers of ecosystem change such as overfishing and other anthropogenic impacts on marine resources. The effectiveness of MPAs in managing those drivers was assessed in three ecological zones, seafront, mangrove, and riverine of Mnazi Bay Marine Park, using Participatory Community Analysis techniques, questionnaire survey, checklist and fishery resource assessment methods. Eleven major drivers of ecosystem change were identified. Resource dependence had a major effect in all ecological zones of the park. The results indicated that the park's legislations/regulations, management procedures, and conservation efforts are reasonably effective in managing its resources. The positive signs accrued from conservation efforts have been realized by the communities in terms of increased catch/income, awareness and compliance. However, some natural and anthropogenic drivers continued to threaten the park's sustainability. Furthermore, implementation of resource use and benefit sharing mechanisms still remained a considerable challenge to be addressed.

North Sea ecosystem change from swimming crabs to seagulls

PubMed Central

Luczak, C.; Beaugrand, G.; Lindley, J. A.; Dewarumez, J-M.; Dubois, P. J.; Kirby, R. R.

2012-01-01

A recent increase in sea temperature has established a new ecosystem dynamic regime in the North Sea. Climate-induced changes in decapods have played an important role. Here, we reveal a coincident increase in the abundance of swimming crabs and lesser black-backed gull colonies in the North Sea, both in time and in space. Swimming crabs are an important food source for lesser black-backed gulls during the breeding season. Inhabiting the land, but feeding mainly at sea, lesser black-backed gulls provide a link between marine and terrestrial ecosystems, since the bottom-up influence of allochthonous nutrient input from seabirds to coastal soils can structure the terrestrial food web. We, therefore, suggest that climate-driven changes in trophic interactions in the marine food web may also have ensuing ramifications for the coastal ecology of the North Sea. PMID:22764111

North Sea ecosystem change from swimming crabs to seagulls.

PubMed

Luczak, C; Beaugrand, G; Lindley, J A; Dewarumez, J-M; Dubois, P J; Kirby, R R

2012-10-23

A recent increase in sea temperature has established a new ecosystem dynamic regime in the North Sea. Climate-induced changes in decapods have played an important role. Here, we reveal a coincident increase in the abundance of swimming crabs and lesser black-backed gull colonies in the North Sea, both in time and in space. Swimming crabs are an important food source for lesser black-backed gulls during the breeding season. Inhabiting the land, but feeding mainly at sea, lesser black-backed gulls provide a link between marine and terrestrial ecosystems, since the bottom-up influence of allochthonous nutrient input from seabirds to coastal soils can structure the terrestrial food web. We, therefore, suggest that climate-driven changes in trophic interactions in the marine food web may also have ensuing ramifications for the coastal ecology of the North Sea.

Reference independent species level profiling of the largest marine microbial ecosystem.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mende, D. R.; DeLong, E.; Aylward, F.

2016-02-01

Marine microbes are of immense importance for the flux of matter and energy within the global oceans. Yet, the temporal variability of microbial communities in response to seasonal and environmental changes remains understudied. In addition, there is only a very limited understanding of the effects that changes within microbial communities at a certain depth have on the other microbes within the water column. Further, existing studies have mostly been limited by the lack of good reference databases. Here we present an reference independent analysis of a year long time series at 5 different water depth of the microbial communities at Station ALOHA, a sampling location representative of the largest contiguous ecosystem on earth, the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG). Due to the lack the lack of closely related reference genomes most recent meta-genomic studies of marine microbial ecosystems have been limited to a coarse grained view at higher taxonomic levels. In order to gain a fine grained picture of the microbial communities and their dynamics within the NPSG, we extended the mOTU approach that has been successfully applied to the human microbiome to this marine ecosystem using more than 60 deeply sequenced metagenomic samples. This method allows for species level community profiling and diversity estimates, revealing seasonal shifts within the microbial communities. Additionally, we detected a number of microbes that respond to changes of different changing environmental conditions. We further surveyed the depth specificity of microbes at station ALOHA, showing species specific patterns of presence at different depths.

Disturbances catalyze the adaptation of forest ecosystems to changing climate conditions.

PubMed

Thom, Dominik; Rammer, Werner; Seidl, Rupert

2017-01-01

The rates of anthropogenic climate change substantially exceed those at which forest ecosystems - dominated by immobile, long-lived organisms - are able to adapt. The resulting maladaptation of forests has potentially detrimental effects on ecosystem functioning. Furthermore, as many forest-dwelling species are highly dependent on the prevailing tree species, a delayed response of the latter to a changing climate can contribute to an extinction debt and mask climate-induced biodiversity loss. However, climate change will likely also intensify forest disturbances. Here, we tested the hypothesis that disturbances foster the reorganization of ecosystems and catalyze the adaptation of forest composition to climate change. Our specific objectives were (i) to quantify the rate of autonomous forest adaptation to climate change, (ii) examine the role of disturbance in the adaptation process, and (iii) investigate spatial differences in climate-induced species turnover in an unmanaged mountain forest landscape (Kalkalpen National Park, Austria). Simulations with a process-based forest landscape model were performed for 36 unique combinations of climate and disturbance scenarios over 1000 years. We found that climate change strongly favored European beech and oak species (currently prevailing in mid- to low-elevation areas), with novel species associations emerging on the landscape. Yet, it took between 357 and 706 years before the landscape attained a dynamic equilibrium with the climate system. Disturbances generally catalyzed adaptation and decreased the time needed to attain equilibrium by up to 211 years. However, while increasing disturbance frequency and severity accelerated adaptation, increasing disturbance size had the opposite effect. Spatial analyses suggest that particularly the lowest and highest elevation areas will be hotspots of future species change. We conclude that the growing maladaptation of forests to climate and the long lead times of autonomous

A comparison of community and trophic structure in five marine ecosystems based on energy budgets and system metrics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gaichas, Sarah; Skaret, Georg; Falk-Petersen, Jannike; Link, Jason S.; Overholtz, William; Megrey, Bernard A.; Gjøsæter, Harald; Stockhausen, William T.; Dommasnes, Are; Friedland, Kevin D.; Aydin, Kerim

2009-04-01

Energy budget models for five marine ecosystems were compared to identify differences and similarities in trophic and community structure. We examined the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank in the northwest Atlantic Ocean, the combined Norwegian/Barents Seas in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, and the eastern Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Comparable energy budgets were constructed for each ecosystem by aggregating information for similar species groups into consistent functional groups. Several ecosystem indices (e.g., functional group production, consumption and biomass ratios, cumulative biomass, food web macrodescriptors, and network metrics) were compared for each ecosystem. The comparative approach clearly identified data gaps for each ecosystem, an important outcome of this work. Commonalities across the ecosystems included overall high primary production and energy flow at low trophic levels, high production and consumption by carnivorous zooplankton, and similar proportions of apex predator to lower trophic level biomass. Major differences included distinct biomass ratios of pelagic to demersal fish, ranging from highest in the combined Norwegian/Barents ecosystem to lowest in the Alaskan systems, and notable differences in primary production per unit area, highest in the Alaskan and Georges Bank/Gulf of Maine ecosystems, and lowest in the Norwegian ecosystems. While comparing a disparate group of organisms across a wide range of marine ecosystems is challenging, this work demonstrates that standardized metrics both elucidate properties common to marine ecosystems and identify key distinctions useful for fisheries management.

Global covariation of carbon turnover times with climate in terrestrial ecosystems.

PubMed

Carvalhais, Nuno; Forkel, Matthias; Khomik, Myroslava; Bellarby, Jessica; Jung, Martin; Migliavacca, Mirco; Mu, Mingquan; Saatchi, Sassan; Santoro, Maurizio; Thurner, Martin; Weber, Ulrich; Ahrens, Bernhard; Beer, Christian; Cescatti, Alessandro; Randerson, James T; Reichstein, Markus

2014-10-09

The response of the terrestrial carbon cycle to climate change is among the largest uncertainties affecting future climate change projections. The feedback between the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate is partly determined by changes in the turnover time of carbon in land ecosystems, which in turn is an ecosystem property that emerges from the interplay between climate, soil and vegetation type. Here we present a global, spatially explicit and observation-based assessment of whole-ecosystem carbon turnover times that combines new estimates of vegetation and soil organic carbon stocks and fluxes. We find that the overall mean global carbon turnover time is 23(+7)(-4) years (95 per cent confidence interval). On average, carbon resides in the vegetation and soil near the Equator for a shorter time than at latitudes north of 75° north (mean turnover times of 15 and 255 years, respectively). We identify a clear dependence of the turnover time on temperature, as expected from our present understanding of temperature controls on ecosystem dynamics. Surprisingly, our analysis also reveals a similarly strong association between turnover time and precipitation. Moreover, we find that the ecosystem carbon turnover times simulated by state-of-the-art coupled climate/carbon-cycle models vary widely and that numerical simulations, on average, tend to underestimate the global carbon turnover time by 36 per cent. The models show stronger spatial relationships with temperature than do observation-based estimates, but generally do not reproduce the strong relationships with precipitation and predict faster carbon turnover in many semi-arid regions. Our findings suggest that future climate/carbon-cycle feedbacks may depend more strongly on changes in the hydrological cycle than is expected at present and is considered in Earth system models.

Predicted responses of arctic and alpine ecosystems to altered seasonality under climate change.

PubMed

Ernakovich, Jessica G; Hopping, Kelly A; Berdanier, Aaron B; Simpson, Rodney T; Kachergis, Emily J; Steltzer, Heidi; Wallenstein, Matthew D

2014-10-01

Global climate change is already having significant impacts on arctic and alpine ecosystems, and ongoing increases in temperature and altered precipitation patterns will affect the strong seasonal patterns that characterize these temperature-limited systems. The length of the potential growing season in these tundra environments is increasing due to warmer temperatures and earlier spring snow melt. Here, we compare current and projected climate and ecological data from 20 Northern Hemisphere sites to identify how seasonal changes in the physical environment due to climate change will alter the seasonality of arctic and alpine ecosystems. We find that although arctic and alpine ecosystems appear similar under historical climate conditions, climate change will lead to divergent responses, particularly in the spring and fall shoulder seasons. As seasonality changes in the Arctic, plants will advance the timing of spring phenological events, which could increase plant nutrient uptake, production, and ecosystem carbon (C) gain. In alpine regions, photoperiod will constrain spring plant phenology, limiting the extent to which the growing season can lengthen, especially if decreased water availability from earlier snow melt and warmer summer temperatures lead to earlier senescence. The result could be a shorter growing season with decreased production and increased nutrient loss. These contrasting alpine and arctic ecosystem responses will have cascading effects on ecosystems, affecting community structure, biotic interactions, and biogeochemistry. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Gulf of California: Review of ecosystem status and sustainability challenges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lluch-Cota, Salvador E.; Aragón-Noriega, Eugenio A.; Arreguín-Sánchez, Francisco; Aurioles-Gamboa, David; Jesús Bautista-Romero, J.; Brusca, Richard C.; Cervantes-Duarte, Rafael; Cortés-Altamirano, Roberto; Del-Monte-Luna, Pablo; Esquivel-Herrera, Alfonso; Fernández, Guillermo; Hendrickx, Michel E.; Hernández-Vázquez, Sergio; Herrera-Cervantes, Hugo; Kahru, Mati; Lavín, Miguel; Lluch-Belda, Daniel; Lluch-Cota, Daniel B.; López-Martínez, Juana; Marinone, Silvio G.; Nevárez-Martínez, Manuel O.; Ortega-García, Sofia; Palacios-Castro, Eduardo; Parés-Sierra, Alejandro; Ponce-Díaz, Germán; Ramírez-Rodríguez, Mauricio; Salinas-Zavala, Cesar A.; Schwartzlose, Richard A.; Sierra-Beltrán, Arturo P.

2007-04-01

The Gulf of California is unique because of its geographical location and conformation. It hosts diverse ecosystems and important fisheries that support industry and provide livelihood to coastal settlements. It is also the site of interests and problems, and an intense interaction among managers, producers, and conservationists. In this report, we scrutinize the abiotic (hydrography, climate, ocean circulation, and chemistry) and biotic (phyto- and zooplankton, fish, invertebrates, marine mammals, birds, and turtles) components of the marine ecosystem, and some particular aspects of climate variability, endemisms, harmful algal blooms, oxygen minimum layer, and pollution. We also review the current conditions and conflicts around the main fisheries (shrimp, small and large pelagic fishes, squid, artisanal and sportfishing), the most important human activity in the Gulf of California. We cover some aspects of management and conservation of fisheries, especially the claimed overexploitation of fish resources and the ecosystems, and review proposals for creating networks of marine protected areas. We conclude by identifying main needs for information and research, particularly the integration of data bases, the implementation of models and paleoreconstructions, establishment of monitoring programs, and the evaluation of fishing impacts and management actions.

Effects of near-future ocean acidification, fishing, and marine protection on a temperate coastal ecosystem.

PubMed

Cornwall, Christopher E; Eddy, Tyler D

2015-02-01

Understanding ecosystem responses to global and local anthropogenic impacts is paramount to predicting future ecosystem states. We used an ecosystem modeling approach to investigate the independent and cumulative effects of fishing, marine protection, and ocean acidification on a coastal ecosystem. To quantify the effects of ocean acidification at the ecosystem level, we used information from the peer-reviewed literature on the effects of ocean acidification. Using an Ecopath with Ecosim ecosystem model for the Wellington south coast, including the Taputeranga Marine Reserve (MR), New Zealand, we predicted ecosystem responses under 4 scenarios: ocean acidification + fishing; ocean acidification + MR (no fishing); no ocean acidification + fishing; no ocean acidification + MR for the year 2050. Fishing had a larger effect on trophic group biomasses and trophic structure than ocean acidification, whereas the effects of ocean acidification were only large in the absence of fishing. Mortality by fishing had large, negative effects on trophic group biomasses. These effects were similar regardless of the presence of ocean acidification. Ocean acidification was predicted to indirectly benefit certain species in the MR scenario. This was because lobster (Jasus edwardsii) only recovered to 58% of the MR biomass in the ocean acidification + MR scenario, a situation that benefited the trophic groups lobsters prey on. Most trophic groups responded antagonistically to the interactive effects of ocean acidification and marine protection (46%; reduced response); however, many groups responded synergistically (33%; amplified response). Conservation and fisheries management strategies need to account for the reduced recovery potential of some exploited species under ocean acidification, nonadditive interactions of multiple factors, and indirect responses of species to ocean acidification caused by declines in calcareous predators. © 2014 Society for Conservation Biology.

Multiple stressors threatening the future of the Baltic Sea-Kattegat marine ecosystem: implications for policy and management actions.

PubMed

Jutterström, S; Andersson, H C; Omstedt, A; Malmaeus, J M

2014-09-15

The paper discusses the combined effects of ocean acidification, eutrophication and climate change on the Baltic Sea and the implications for current management strategies. The scientific basis is built on results gathered in the BONUS+ projects Baltic-C and ECOSUPPORT. Model results indicate that the Baltic Sea is likely to be warmer, more hypoxic and more acidic in the future. At present management strategies are not taking into account temporal trends and potential ecosystem change due to warming and/or acidification, and therefore fulfilling the obligations specified within the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, OSPAR and HELCOM conventions and national environmental objectives may become significantly more difficult. The paper aims to provide a basis for a discussion on the effectiveness of current policy instruments and possible strategies for setting practical environmental objectives in a changing climate and with multiple stressors. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Results of the 2004 Marine Corps Climate Surveys (MCCS): Management Report

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-11-01

of Different Racial/Ethnic Backgrounds Socialize Together During Command Functions...organizational climate of the Marine Corps, equal opportunity and related issues such as sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Responses to the Marine...type of survey, the Marine Corps is able to gain insights into trends occurring in the equal opportunity and sexual harassment areas. The Marine

Variability of temperature and chlorophyll of the Iberian Peninsula near costal ecosystem during an upwelling event for the present climate and a future climate scenario

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lopes, José Fortes; Ferreira, Juan A.; Cardoso, Ana Cristina; Rocha, Alfredo C.

2014-01-01

Understanding the importance and the implication of the climate changes on coastal areas may be one of the major issues for this and next centuries. Climate changes may, indeed, impact the nearshore marine ecosystem, as coastal areas are very sensitive to the strength and the variability of the meteorological forcings. The main purpose of this work is to study temperature and phytoplankton distributions along the Portuguese near coastal zone during upwelling events in the present climate conditions and in a future climate scenario. The SRES-A2 IPCC scenario has been considered. We have used a three-dimensional model for coastal and shelf seas, including the following sub-models: hydrodynamical/physical, biological, sediment and contaminant. The forcings are provided by the interactions at the air-sea, considering the wind intensity and direction with the help of the WRF model (Weather Research and Forecast Model) and the coupled atmosphere-ocean model ECHAM5/MPI-OM. Results show that, for the future climate scenario, there is a reinforcement of the southward wind. The responses of the coastal ecosystem corresponds to the reinforcement of both, the southward (up to 10 cm/s) and the westward (up to 6 cm/s) induced upwelling currents. This, in turn generates an enlargement of the near coast upwelled cold layer, extending up to 60 km, as well as the rise of the warm layer temperature (up to 2.0 °C) and the spreading of the phytoplankton offshore. Significant changes in both the Chl-a vertical and the horizontal distribution patterns have been observed, as the nutrient supply to the upper layers depends on the strength of the upwelling, the bottom topography and orography of the coastal. These results confirm that changes in the strength and eventually the frequency of the upwelling favourable wind impact the phytoplankton distribution, which can have significant effect in the distribution and population of the upper level of the trophic chain of the coastal ecosystem.

A multitrophic model to quantify the effects of marine viruses on microbial food webs and ecosystem processes

PubMed Central

Weitz, Joshua S; Stock, Charles A; Wilhelm, Steven W; Bourouiba, Lydia; Coleman, Maureen L; Buchan, Alison; Follows, Michael J; Fuhrman, Jed A; Jover, Luis F; Lennon, Jay T; Middelboe, Mathias; Sonderegger, Derek L; Suttle, Curtis A; Taylor, Bradford P; Frede Thingstad, T; Wilson, William H; Eric Wommack, K

2015-01-01

Viral lysis of microbial hosts releases organic matter that can then be assimilated by nontargeted microorganisms. Quantitative estimates of virus-mediated recycling of carbon in marine waters, first established in the late 1990s, were originally extrapolated from marine host and virus densities, host carbon content and inferred viral lysis rates. Yet, these estimates did not explicitly incorporate the cascade of complex feedbacks associated with virus-mediated lysis. To evaluate the role of viruses in shaping community structure and ecosystem functioning, we extend dynamic multitrophic ecosystem models to include a virus component, specifically parameterized for processes taking place in the ocean euphotic zone. Crucially, we are able to solve this model analytically, facilitating evaluation of model behavior under many alternative parameterizations. Analyses reveal that the addition of a virus component promotes the emergence of complex communities. In addition, biomass partitioning of the emergent multitrophic community is consistent with well-established empirical norms in the surface oceans. At steady state, ecosystem fluxes can be probed to characterize the effects that viruses have when compared with putative marine surface ecosystems without viruses. The model suggests that ecosystems with viruses will have (1) increased organic matter recycling, (2) reduced transfer to higher trophic levels and (3) increased net primary productivity. These model findings support hypotheses that viruses can have significant stimulatory effects across whole-ecosystem scales. We suggest that existing efforts to predict carbon and nutrient cycling without considering virus effects are likely to miss essential features of marine food webs that regulate global biogeochemical cycles. PMID:25635642

A multitrophic model to quantify the effects of marine viruses on microbial food webs and ecosystem processes.

PubMed

Weitz, Joshua S; Stock, Charles A; Wilhelm, Steven W; Bourouiba, Lydia; Coleman, Maureen L; Buchan, Alison; Follows, Michael J; Fuhrman, Jed A; Jover, Luis F; Lennon, Jay T; Middelboe, Mathias; Sonderegger, Derek L; Suttle, Curtis A; Taylor, Bradford P; Frede Thingstad, T; Wilson, William H; Eric Wommack, K

2015-06-01

Viral lysis of microbial hosts releases organic matter that can then be assimilated by nontargeted microorganisms. Quantitative estimates of virus-mediated recycling of carbon in marine waters, first established in the late 1990s, were originally extrapolated from marine host and virus densities, host carbon content and inferred viral lysis rates. Yet, these estimates did not explicitly incorporate the cascade of complex feedbacks associated with virus-mediated lysis. To evaluate the role of viruses in shaping community structure and ecosystem functioning, we extend dynamic multitrophic ecosystem models to include a virus component, specifically parameterized for processes taking place in the ocean euphotic zone. Crucially, we are able to solve this model analytically, facilitating evaluation of model behavior under many alternative parameterizations. Analyses reveal that the addition of a virus component promotes the emergence of complex communities. In addition, biomass partitioning of the emergent multitrophic community is consistent with well-established empirical norms in the surface oceans. At steady state, ecosystem fluxes can be probed to characterize the effects that viruses have when compared with putative marine surface ecosystems without viruses. The model suggests that ecosystems with viruses will have (1) increased organic matter recycling, (2) reduced transfer to higher trophic levels and (3) increased net primary productivity. These model findings support hypotheses that viruses can have significant stimulatory effects across whole-ecosystem scales. We suggest that existing efforts to predict carbon and nutrient cycling without considering virus effects are likely to miss essential features of marine food webs that regulate global biogeochemical cycles.

Impacts of Climate Variability and Change on (Marine) Animals: Physiological Underpinnings and Evolutionary Consequences.

PubMed

Pörtner, Hans O; Gutt, Julian

2016-07-01

Understanding thermal ranges and limits of organisms becomes important in light of climate change and observed effects on ecosystems as reported by the IPCC (2014). Evolutionary adaptation to temperature is presently unable to keep animals and other organisms in place; if they can these rather follow the moving isotherms. These effects of climate change on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems have brought into focus the mechanisms by which temperature and its oscillations shape the biogeography and survival of species. For animals, the integrative concept of oxygen and capacity limited thermal tolerance (OCLTT) has successfully characterized the sublethal limits to performance and the consequences of such limits for ecosystems. Recent models illustrate how routine energy demand defines the realized niche. Steady state temperature-dependent performance profiles thus trace the thermal window and indicate a key role for aerobic metabolism, and the resulting budget of available energy (power), in defining performance under routine conditions, from growth to exercise and reproduction. Differences in the performance and productivity of marine species across latitudes relate to changes in mitochondrial density, capacity, and other features of cellular design. Comparative studies indicate how and why such mechanisms underpinning OCLTT may have developed on evolutionary timescales in different climatic zones and contributed to shaping the functional characteristics and species richness of the respective fauna. A cause-and-effect understanding emerges from considering the relationships between fluctuations in body temperature, cellular design, and performance. Such principles may also have been involved in shaping the functional characteristics of survivors in mass extinction events during earth's history; furthermore, they may provide access to understanding the evolution of endothermy in mammals and birds. Accordingly, an understanding is emerging how climate changes and

Ecosystem heterogeneity determines the ecological resilience of the Amazon to climate change.

PubMed

Levine, Naomi M; Zhang, Ke; Longo, Marcos; Baccini, Alessandro; Phillips, Oliver L; Lewis, Simon L; Alvarez-Dávila, Esteban; Segalin de Andrade, Ana Cristina; Brienen, Roel J W; Erwin, Terry L; Feldpausch, Ted R; Monteagudo Mendoza, Abel Lorenzo; Nuñez Vargas, Percy; Prieto, Adriana; Silva-Espejo, Javier Eduardo; Malhi, Yadvinder; Moorcroft, Paul R

2016-01-19

Amazon forests, which store ∼ 50% of tropical forest carbon and play a vital role in global water, energy, and carbon cycling, are predicted to experience both longer and more intense dry seasons by the end of the 21st century. However, the climate sensitivity of this ecosystem remains uncertain: several studies have predicted large-scale die-back of the Amazon, whereas several more recent studies predict that the biome will remain largely intact. Combining remote-sensing and ground-based observations with a size- and age-structured terrestrial ecosystem model, we explore the sensitivity and ecological resilience of these forests to changes in climate. We demonstrate that water stress operating at the scale of individual plants, combined with spatial variation in soil texture, explains observed patterns of variation in ecosystem biomass, composition, and dynamics across the region, and strongly influences the ecosystem's resilience to changes in dry season length. Specifically, our analysis suggests that in contrast to existing predictions of either stability or catastrophic biomass loss, the Amazon forest's response to a drying regional climate is likely to be an immediate, graded, heterogeneous transition from high-biomass moist forests to transitional dry forests and woody savannah-like states. Fire, logging, and other anthropogenic disturbances may, however, exacerbate these climate change-induced ecosystem transitions.

Marine Arctic Ecosystem Study (MARES) - An Integrated Approach to the Dynamics of the Beaufort Sea

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wiese, F. K.; Gryba, R.; Kelly, B. P.

2016-02-01

MARES is an integrated ecosystem research initiative coordinated and planned by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Office of Naval Research, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and Shell through the National Oceanographic Partnership Program. The overarching goal is to advance our knowledge of the structure and function of the Beaufort Sea marine ecosystem so as to link atmospheric and oceanic drivers to sea ice patterns and marine mammal distribution and availability to local subsistence communities. The study, funded in 2014, focuses on the marine ecosystem along the Beaufort Sea shelf from Barrow, Alaska to the Mackenzie River delta in Canada and is scheduled to include bio-physical moorings along the US-Canadian border, glider deployments packed with bio-physical sensors, tagging of whales and ice-associated seals with satellite CTD-Fluorometer tags, biophysical and chemical cruises including the measurement and characterization of hydrography, ice, nutrients, primary and secondary production, carbon budgets, benthic fauna, fish, as well as analysis of freshwater input and chemical loadings, and ecosystem modeling. This presentation will focus on preliminary results from the ice seal tagging that started in the summer of 2015 and describe some of the planning and possibilities for partnerships for the more comprehensive 2016 field season and beyond.

Using fuzzy logic to determine the vulnerability of marine species to climate change.

PubMed

Jones, Miranda C; Cheung, William W L

2018-02-01

Marine species are being impacted by climate change and ocean acidification, although their level of vulnerability varies due to differences in species' sensitivity, adaptive capacity and exposure to climate hazards. Due to limited data on the biological and ecological attributes of many marine species, as well as inherent uncertainties in the assessment process, climate change vulnerability assessments in the marine environment frequently focus on a limited number of taxa or geographic ranges. As climate change is already impacting marine biodiversity and fisheries, there is an urgent need to expand vulnerability assessment to cover a large number of species and areas. Here, we develop a modelling approach to synthesize data on species-specific estimates of exposure, and ecological and biological traits to undertake an assessment of vulnerability (sensitivity and adaptive capacity) and risk of impacts (combining exposure to hazards and vulnerability) of climate change (including ocean acidification) for global marine fishes and invertebrates. We use a fuzzy logic approach to accommodate the variability in data availability and uncertainties associated with inferring vulnerability levels from climate projections and species' traits. Applying the approach to estimate the relative vulnerability and risk of impacts of climate change in 1074 exploited marine species globally, we estimated their index of vulnerability and risk of impacts to be on average 52 ± 19 SD and 66 ± 11 SD, scaling from 1 to 100, with 100 being the most vulnerable and highest risk, respectively, under the 'business-as-usual' greenhouse gas emission scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5). We identified 157 species to be highly vulnerable while 294 species are identified as being at high risk of impacts. Species that are most vulnerable tend to be large-bodied endemic species. This study suggests that the fuzzy logic framework can help estimate climate vulnerabilities and risks

Microbial processes in marine ecosystem models: state of the art and future prospective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Polimene, L.; Butenschon, M.; Blackford, J.; Allen, I.

2012-12-01

Heterotrophic bacteria play a key role in the marine biogeochemistry being the main consumer of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and the main producer of carbon dioxide (CO2) by respiration. Quantifying the carbon and energy fluxes within bacteria (i.e. production, respiration, overflow metabolism etc.) is therefore crucial for the assessment of the global ocean carbon and nutrient cycles. Consequently, the description of bacteria dynamic in ecosystem models is a key (although challenging) issue which cannot be overlooked if we want to properly simulate the marine environment. We present an overview of the microbial processes described in the European Sea Regional Ecosystem Model (ERSEM), a state of the art biogeochemical model resolving carbon and nutrient cycles (N, P, Si and Fe) within the low trophic levels (up to mesozooplankton) of the marine ecosystem. The description of the theoretical assumptions and philosophy underpinning the ERSEM bacteria sub-model will be followed by the presentation of some case studies highlighting the relevance of resolving microbial processes in the simulation of ecosystem dynamics at a local scale. Recent results concerning the implementation of ERSEM on a global ocean domain will be also presented. This latter exercise includes a comparison between simulations carried out with the full bacteria sub-model and simulations carried out with an implicit parameterization of bacterial activity. The results strongly underline the importance of explicitly resolved bacteria in the simulation of global carbon fluxes. Finally, a summary of the future developments along with issues still open on the topic will be presented and discussed.

Regional Approach for Linking Ecosystem Services and Livelihood Strategies Under Climate Change of Pastoral Communities in the Mongolian Steppe Ecosystem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ojima, D. S.; Galvin, K.; Togtohyn, C.

2012-12-01

Dramatic changes due to climate and land use dynamics in the Mongolian Plateau affecting ecosystem services and agro-pastoral systems in Mongolia. Recently, market forces and development strategies are affecting land and water resources of the pastoral communities which are being further stressed due to climatic changes. Evaluation of pastoral systems, where humans depend on livestock and grassland ecosystem services, have demonstrated the vulnerability of the social-ecological system to climate change. Current social-ecological changes in ecosystem services are affecting land productivity and carrying capacity, land-atmosphere interactions, water resources, and livelihood strategies. The general trend involves greater intensification of resource exploitation at the expense of traditional patterns of extensive range utilization. Thus we expect climate-land use-land cover relationships to be crucially modified by the social-economic forces. The analysis incorporates information about the social-economic transitions taking place in the region which affect land-use, food security, and ecosystem dynamics. The region of study extends from the Mongolian plateau in Mongolia. Our research indicate that sustainability of pastoral systems in the region needs to integrate the impact of climate change on ecosystem services with socio-economic changes shaping the livelihood strategies of pastoral systems in the region. Adaptation strategies which incorporate integrated analysis of landscape management and livelihood strategies provides a framework which links ecosystem services to critical resource assets. Analysis of the available livelihood assets provides insights to the adaptive capacity of various agents in a region or in a community. Sustainable development pathways which enable the development of these adaptive capacity elements will lead to more effective adaptive management strategies for pastoral land use and herder's living standards. Pastoralists will have the

Modeling Hawaiian ecosystem degradation due to invasive plants under current and future climates

USGS Publications Warehouse

Vorsino, Adam E.; Fortini, Lucas B.; Amidon, Fred A.; Miller, Stephen E.; Jacobi, James D.; Price, Jonathan P.; `Ohukani`ohi`a Gon, Sam; Koob, Gregory A.

2014-01-01

Occupation of native ecosystems by invasive plant species alters their structure and/or function. In Hawaii, a subset of introduced plants is regarded as extremely harmful due to competitive ability, ecosystem modification, and biogeochemical habitat degradation. By controlling this subset of highly invasive ecosystem modifiers, conservation managers could significantly reduce native ecosystem degradation. To assess the invasibility of vulnerable native ecosystems, we selected a proxy subset of these invasive plants and developed robust ensemble species distribution models to define their respective potential distributions. The combinations of all species models using both binary and continuous habitat suitability projections resulted in estimates of species richness and diversity that were subsequently used to define an invasibility metric. The invasibility metric was defined from species distribution models with 0.8; True Skill Statistic >0.75) as evaluated per species. Invasibility was further projected onto a 2100 Hawaii regional climate change scenario to assess the change in potential habitat degradation. The distribution defined by the invasibility metric delineates areas of known and potential invasibility under current climate conditions and, when projected into the future, estimates potential reductions in native ecosystem extent due to climate-driven invasive incursion. We have provided the code used to develop these metrics to facilitate their wider use (Code S1). This work will help determine the vulnerability of native-dominated ecosystems to the combined threats of climate change and invasive species, and thus help prioritize ecosystem and species management actions.

Climate change impacts utilizing regional models for agriculture, hydrology and natural ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kafatos, M.; Asrar, G. R.; El-Askary, H. M.; Hatzopoulos, N.; Kim, J.; Kim, S.; Medvigy, D.; Prasad, A. K.; Smith, E.; Stack, D. H.; Tremback, C.; Walko, R. L.

2012-12-01

Climate change impacts the entire Earth but with crucial and often catastrophic impacts at local and regional levels. Extreme phenomena such as fires, dust storms, droughts and other natural hazards present immediate risks and challenges. Such phenomena will become more extreme as climate change and anthropogenic activities accelerate in the future. We describe a major project funded by NIFA (Grant # 2011-67004-30224), under the joint NSF-DOE-USDA Earth System Models (EaSM) program, to investigate the impacts of climate variability and change on the agricultural and natural (i.e. rangeland) ecosystems in the Southwest USA using a combination of historical and present observations together with climate, and ecosystem models, both in hind-cast and forecast modes. The applicability of the methodology to other regions is relevant (for similar geographic regions as well as other parts of the world with different agriculture and ecosystems) and should advance the state of knowledge for regional impacts of climate change. A combination of multi-model global climate projections from the decadal predictability simulations, to downscale dynamically these projections using three regional climate models, combined with remote sensing MODIS and other data, in order to obtain high-resolution climate data that can be used with hydrological and ecosystem models for impacts analysis, is described in this presentation. Such analysis is needed to assess the future risks and potential impacts of projected changes on these natural and managed ecosystems. The results from our analysis can be used by scientists to assist extended communities to determine agricultural coping strategies, and is, therefore, of interest to wide communities of stakeholders. In future work we will be including surface hydrologic modeling and water resources, extend modeling to higher resolutions and include significantly more crops and geographical regions with different weather and climate conditions

Future of African terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystems under anthropogenic climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Midgley, Guy F.; Bond, William J.

2015-09-01

Projections of ecosystem and biodiversity change for Africa under climate change diverge widely. More than other continents, Africa has disturbance-driven ecosystems that diversified under low Neogene CO2 levels, in which flammable fire-dependent C4 grasses suppress trees, and mega-herbivore action alters vegetation significantly. An important consequence is metastability of vegetation state, with rapid vegetation switches occurring, some driven by anthropogenic CO2-stimulated release of trees from disturbance control. These have conflicting implications for biodiversity and carbon sequestration relevant for policymakers and land managers. Biodiversity and ecosystem change projections need to account for both disturbance control and direct climate control of vegetation structure and function.

Ecosystem management can mitigate vegetation shifts induced by climate change in African savannas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scheiter, Simon; Savadogo, Patrice

2017-04-01

The welfare of people in the tropics and sub-tropics strongly depends on goods and services that ecosystems supply. Flows of these ecosystem services are strongly influenced by interactions between climate change and land use. A prominent example are savannas, covering approximately 20% of the Earth's land surface. Key ecosystem services in these areas are fuel wood for cooking and heating, food production and livestock. Changes in the structure and dynamics of savanna vegetation may strongly influence local people's living conditions, as well as the climate system and biogeochemical cycles. We used a dynamic vegetation model to explore interactive effects of climate and land use on the vegetation structure, distribution and carbon cycling of African savannas under current and future conditions. More specifically, we simulate long term impacts of fire management, grazing and fuel wood harvesting. The model projects that under future climate without human land use impacts, large savanna areas would shift towards more wood dominated vegetation due to CO2 fertilization effects and changes in water use efficiency. However, land use activities can mitigate climate change impacts on vegetation to maintain desired ecosystem states that ensure fluxes of important ecosystem services. We then use optimization algorithms to identify sustainable land use strategies that maximize the utility of people managing savannas while preserving a stable vegetation state. Our results highlight that the development of land use policy for tropical and sub-tropical areas needs to account for climate change impacts on vegetation.

Recommendations for developing and applying genetic tools to assess and manage biological invasions in marine ecosystems

EPA Science Inventory

The European Union’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) aims to adopt integrated ecosystem management approaches to achieve or maintain “Good Environmental Status” for marine waters, habitats and resources, including mitigation of the negative effects of non-indigenous sp...

Responses of terrestrial ecosystems' net primary productivity to future regional climate change in China.

PubMed

Zhao, Dongsheng; Wu, Shaohong; Yin, Yunhe

2013-01-01

The impact of regional climate change on net primary productivity (NPP) is an important aspect in the study of ecosystems' response to global climate change. China's ecosystems are very sensitive to climate change owing to the influence of the East Asian monsoon. The Lund-Potsdam-Jena Dynamic Global Vegetation Model for China (LPJ-CN), a global dynamical vegetation model developed for China's terrestrial ecosystems, was applied in this study to simulate the NPP changes affected by future climate change. As the LPJ-CN model is based on natural vegetation, the simulation in this study did not consider the influence of anthropogenic activities. Results suggest that future climate change would have adverse effects on natural ecosystems, with NPP tending to decrease in eastern China, particularly in the temperate and warm temperate regions. NPP would increase in western China, with a concentration in the Tibetan Plateau and the northwest arid regions. The increasing trend in NPP in western China and the decreasing trend in eastern China would be further enhanced by the warming climate. The spatial distribution of NPP, which declines from the southeast coast to the northwest inland, would have minimal variation under scenarios of climate change.

Mass Spectrometry-Based Metabolomics to Elucidate Functions in Marine Organisms and Ecosystems

PubMed Central

Goulitquer, Sophie; Potin, Philippe; Tonon, Thierry

2012-01-01

Marine systems are very diverse and recognized as being sources of a wide range of biomolecules. This review provides an overview of metabolite profiling based on mass spectrometry (MS) approaches in marine organisms and their environments, focusing on recent advances in the field. We also point out some of the technical challenges that need to be overcome in order to increase applications of metabolomics in marine systems, including extraction of chemical compounds from different matrices and data management. Metabolites being important links between genotype and phenotype, we describe added value provided by integration of data from metabolite profiling with other layers of omics, as well as their importance for the development of systems biology approaches in marine systems to study several biological processes, and to analyze interactions between organisms within communities. The growing importance of MS-based metabolomics in chemical ecology studies in marine ecosystems is also illustrated. PMID:22690147

Draft Genome Sequences of Gammaproteobacterial Methanotrophs Isolated from Marine Ecosystems: TABLE 1 

DOE PAGES

Flynn, James D.; Hirayama, Hisako; Sakai, Yasuyoshi; ...

2016-01-21

The genome sequences ofMethylobacter marinusA45,Methylobactersp. strain BBA5.1, andMethylomarinum vadiIT-4 were obtained. These aerobic methanotrophs are typical members of coastal and hydrothermal vent marine ecosystems.

Accelerated warming and emergent trends in fisheries biomass yields of the world's large marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Sherman, Kenneth; Belkin, Igor M; Friedland, Kevin D; O'Reilly, John; Hyde, Kimberly

2009-06-01

Information on the effects of global climate change on trends in global fisheries biomass yields has been limited in spatial and temporal scale. Results are presented of a global study of the impact of sea surface temperature (SST) changes over the last 25 years on the fisheries yields of 63 large marine ecosystems (LMEs) that annually produce 80% of the world's marine fisheries catches. Warming trends were observed in 61 LMEs around the globe. In 18 of the LMEs, rates of SST warming were two to four times faster during the past 25 years than the globally averaged rates of SST warming reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Effects of warming on fisheries biomass yields were greatest in the fast-warming northern Northeast Atlantic LMEs, where increasing trends in fisheries biomass yields were related to zooplankton biomass increases. In contrast, fisheries biomass yields of LMEs in the fast-warming, more southerly reaches of the Northeast Atlantic were declining in response to decreases in zooplankton abundance. The LMEs around the margins of the Indian Ocean, where SSTs were among the world's slowest warming, revealed a consistent pattern of fisheries biomass increases during the past 25 years, driven principally by human need for food security from fisheries resources. As a precautionary approach toward more sustainable fisheries utilization, management measures to limit the total allowable catch through a cap-and-sustain approach are suggested for the developing nations recently fishing heavily on resources of the Agulhas Current, Somali Current, Arabian Sea, and Bay of Bengal LMEs.

Plant responses, climate pivot points, and trade-offs in water-limited ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Munson, S. M.; Bunting, E.

2017-12-01

Ecosystem transitions and thresholds are conceptually well-defined and have become a framework to address vegetation response to climate change and land-use intensification, yet there are few approaches to define the environmental conditions which can lead to them. We demonstrate a novel climate pivot point approach using long-term monitoring data from a broad network of permanent plots, satellite imagery, and experimental treatments across the southwestern U.S. The climate pivot point identifies conditions that lead to decreased plant performance and serves as an early warning sign of increased vulnerability of crossing a threshold into an altered ecosystem state. Plant responses and climate pivot points aligned with the lifespan and structural characteristics of species, were modified by soil and landscape attributes of a site, and had non-linear dynamics in some cases. Species with strong increases in abundance when water was available were most susceptible to losses during water shortages, reinforcing plant energetic and physiological tradeoffs. Future research to uncover the heterogeneity of plant responses and climate pivot points at multiple scales can lead to greater understanding of shifts in ecosystem productivity and vulnerability to climate change.

Divergence of ecosystem services in U.S. National Forests and Grasslands under a changing climate.

PubMed

Duan, Kai; Sun, Ge; Sun, Shanlei; Caldwell, Peter V; Cohen, Erika C; McNulty, Steven G; Aldridge, Heather D; Zhang, Yang

2016-04-21

The 170 National Forests and Grasslands (NFs) in the conterminous United States are public lands that provide important ecosystem services such as clean water and timber supply to the American people. This study investigates the potential impacts of climate change on two key ecosystem functions (i.e., water yield and ecosystem productivity) using the most recent climate projections derived from 20 Global Climate Models (GCMs) of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5). We find that future climate change may result in a significant reduction in water yield but an increase in ecosystem productivity in NFs. On average, gross ecosystem productivity is projected to increase by 76 ~ 229 g C m(-2) yr(-1) (8% ~ 24%) while water yield is projected to decrease by 18 ~ 31 mm yr(-1) (4% ~ 7%) by 2100 as a result of the combination of increased air temperature (+1.8 ~ +5.2 °C) and precipitation (+17 ~ +51 mm yr(-1)). The notable divergence in ecosystem services of water supply and carbon sequestration is expected to intensify under higher greenhouse gas emission and associated climate change in the future, posing greater challenges to managing NFs for both ecosystem services.

Perceptions of Rule-Breaking Related to Marine Ecosystem Health

PubMed Central

Slater, Matthew J.; Mgaya, Yunus D.; Stead, Selina M.

2014-01-01

Finding effective solutions to manage marine resources is high on political and conservation agendas worldwide. This is made more urgent by the rate of increase in the human population and concomitant resource pressures in coastal areas. This paper links empirical socio-economic data about perceptions of marine resource health to the breaking of marine management rules, using fisheries as a case study. The relationship between perceived rule-breaking (non-compliance with regulations controlling fishing) and perceived health of inshore marine environments was investigated through face-to-face interviews with 299 heads of households in three Tanzanian coastal communities in November and December 2011. Awareness of rules controlling fishing activity was high among all respondents. Fishers were able to describe more specific rules controlling fishing practices than non-fishers (t = 3.5, df = 297, p<0.01). Perceived breaking of fishing regulations was reported by nearly half of all respondents, saying “some” (32% of responses) or “most” (15% of responses) people break fishing rules. Ordinal regression modelling revealed a significant linkage (z = −3.44, p<0.001) in the relationship between respondents' perceptions of deteriorating marine health and their perception of increased rule-breaking. In this paper, inferences from an empirical study are used to identify and argue the potential for using perceptions of ecosystem health and level of rule-breaking as a means to guide management measures. When considering different management options (e.g. Marine Protected Areas), policy makers are advised to take account of and utilise likely egoistic or altruistic decision-making factors used by fishers to determine their marine activities. PMID:24586558

Perceptions of rule-breaking related to marine ecosystem health.

PubMed

Slater, Matthew J; Mgaya, Yunus D; Stead, Selina M

2014-01-01

Finding effective solutions to manage marine resources is high on political and conservation agendas worldwide. This is made more urgent by the rate of increase in the human population and concomitant resource pressures in coastal areas. This paper links empirical socio-economic data about perceptions of marine resource health to the breaking of marine management rules, using fisheries as a case study. The relationship between perceived rule-breaking (non-compliance with regulations controlling fishing) and perceived health of inshore marine environments was investigated through face-to-face interviews with 299 heads of households in three Tanzanian coastal communities in November and December 2011. Awareness of rules controlling fishing activity was high among all respondents. Fishers were able to describe more specific rules controlling fishing practices than non-fishers (t = 3.5, df = 297, p<0.01). Perceived breaking of fishing regulations was reported by nearly half of all respondents, saying "some" (32% of responses) or "most" (15% of responses) people break fishing rules. Ordinal regression modelling revealed a significant linkage (z= -3.44, p<0.001) in the relationship between respondents' perceptions of deteriorating marine health and their perception of increased rule-breaking. In this paper, inferences from an empirical study are used to identify and argue the potential for using perceptions of ecosystem health and level of rule-breaking as a means to guide management measures. When considering different management options (e.g. Marine Protected Areas), policy makers are advised to take account of and utilise likely egoistic or altruistic decision-making factors used by fishers to determine their marine activities.

Contrasting fire responses to climate and management: insights from two Australian ecosystems.

PubMed

King, Karen J; Cary, Geoffrey J; Bradstock, Ross A; Marsden-Smedley, Jonathan B

2013-04-01

This study explores effects of climate change and fuel management on unplanned fire activity in ecosystems representing contrasting extremes of the moisture availability spectrum (mesic and arid). Simulation modelling examined unplanned fire activity (fire incidence and area burned, and the area burned by large fires) for alternate climate scenarios and prescribed burning levels in: (i) a cool, moist temperate forest and wet moorland ecosystem in south-west Tasmania (mesic); and (ii) a spinifex and mulga ecosystem in central Australia (arid). Contemporary fire activity in these case study systems is limited, respectively, by fuel availability and fuel amount. For future climates, unplanned fire incidence and area burned increased in the mesic landscape, but decreased in the arid landscape in accordance with predictions based on these limiting factors. Area burned by large fires (greater than the 95th percentile of historical, unplanned fire size) increased with future climates in the mesic landscape. Simulated prescribed burning was more effective in reducing unplanned fire activity in the mesic landscape. However, the inhibitory effects of prescribed burning are predicted to be outweighed by climate change in the mesic landscape, whereas in the arid landscape prescribed burning reinforced a predicted decline in fire under climate change. The potentially contrasting direction of future changes to fire will have fundamentally different consequences for biodiversity in these contrasting ecosystems, and these will need to be accommodated through contrasting, innovative management solutions. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Modeling Hawaiian Ecosystem Degradation due to Invasive Plants under Current and Future Climates

PubMed Central

Vorsino, Adam E.; Fortini, Lucas B.; Amidon, Fred A.; Miller, Stephen E.; Jacobi, James D.; Price, Jonathan P.; Gon, Sam 'Ohukani'ohi'a; Koob, Gregory A.

2014-01-01

Occupation of native ecosystems by invasive plant species alters their structure and/or function. In Hawaii, a subset of introduced plants is regarded as extremely harmful due to competitive ability, ecosystem modification, and biogeochemical habitat degradation. By controlling this subset of highly invasive ecosystem modifiers, conservation managers could significantly reduce native ecosystem degradation. To assess the invasibility of vulnerable native ecosystems, we selected a proxy subset of these invasive plants and developed robust ensemble species distribution models to define their respective potential distributions. The combinations of all species models using both binary and continuous habitat suitability projections resulted in estimates of species richness and diversity that were subsequently used to define an invasibility metric. The invasibility metric was defined from species distribution models with <0.7 niche overlap (Warrens I) and relatively discriminative distributions (Area Under the Curve >0.8; True Skill Statistic >0.75) as evaluated per species. Invasibility was further projected onto a 2100 Hawaii regional climate change scenario to assess the change in potential habitat degradation. The distribution defined by the invasibility metric delineates areas of known and potential invasibility under current climate conditions and, when projected into the future, estimates potential reductions in native ecosystem extent due to climate-driven invasive incursion. We have provided the code used to develop these metrics to facilitate their wider use (Code S1). This work will help determine the vulnerability of native-dominated ecosystems to the combined threats of climate change and invasive species, and thus help prioritize ecosystem and species management actions. PMID:24805254

Modeling Hawaiian ecosystem degradation due to invasive plants under current and future climates.

PubMed

Vorsino, Adam E; Fortini, Lucas B; Amidon, Fred A; Miller, Stephen E; Jacobi, James D; Price, Jonathan P; Gon, Sam 'ohukani'ohi'a; Koob, Gregory A

2014-01-01

Occupation of native ecosystems by invasive plant species alters their structure and/or function. In Hawaii, a subset of introduced plants is regarded as extremely harmful due to competitive ability, ecosystem modification, and biogeochemical habitat degradation. By controlling this subset of highly invasive ecosystem modifiers, conservation managers could significantly reduce native ecosystem degradation. To assess the invasibility of vulnerable native ecosystems, we selected a proxy subset of these invasive plants and developed robust ensemble species distribution models to define their respective potential distributions. The combinations of all species models using both binary and continuous habitat suitability projections resulted in estimates of species richness and diversity that were subsequently used to define an invasibility metric. The invasibility metric was defined from species distribution models with <0.7 niche overlap (Warrens I) and relatively discriminative distributions (Area Under the Curve >0.8; True Skill Statistic >0.75) as evaluated per species. Invasibility was further projected onto a 2100 Hawaii regional climate change scenario to assess the change in potential habitat degradation. The distribution defined by the invasibility metric delineates areas of known and potential invasibility under current climate conditions and, when projected into the future, estimates potential reductions in native ecosystem extent due to climate-driven invasive incursion. We have provided the code used to develop these metrics to facilitate their wider use (Code S1). This work will help determine the vulnerability of native-dominated ecosystems to the combined threats of climate change and invasive species, and thus help prioritize ecosystem and species management actions.

Integrating plant ecological responses to climate extremes from individual to ecosystem levels.

PubMed

Felton, Andrew J; Smith, Melinda D

2017-06-19

Climate extremes will elicit responses from the individual to the ecosystem level. However, only recently have ecologists begun to synthetically assess responses to climate extremes across multiple levels of ecological organization. We review the literature to examine how plant responses vary and interact across levels of organization, focusing on how individual, population and community responses may inform ecosystem-level responses in herbaceous and forest plant communities. We report a high degree of variability at the individual level, and a consequential inconsistency in the translation of individual or population responses to directional changes in community- or ecosystem-level processes. The scaling of individual or population responses to community or ecosystem responses is often predicated upon the functional identity of the species in the community, in particular, the dominant species. Furthermore, the reported stability in plant community composition and functioning with respect to extremes is often driven by processes that operate at the community level, such as species niche partitioning and compensatory responses during or after the event. Future research efforts would benefit from assessing ecological responses across multiple levels of organization, as this will provide both a holistic and mechanistic understanding of ecosystem responses to increasing climatic variability.This article is part of the themed issue 'Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events'. © 2017 The Author(s).

Climate change effects on the Baltic Sea borderland between land and sea.

PubMed

Strandmark, Alma; Bring, Arvid; Cousins, Sara A O; Destouni, Georgia; Kautsky, Hans; Kolb, Gundula; de la Torre-Castro, Maricela; Hambäck, Peter A

2015-01-01

Coastal habitats are situated on the border between land and sea, and ecosystem structure and functioning is influenced by both marine and terrestrial processes. Despite this, most scientific studies and monitoring are conducted either with a terrestrial or an aquatic focus. To address issues concerning climate change impacts in coastal areas, a cross-ecosystem approach is necessary. Since habitats along the Baltic coastlines vary in hydrology, natural geography, and ecology, climate change projections for Baltic shore ecosystems are bound to be highly speculative. Societal responses to climate change in the Baltic coastal ecosystems should have an ecosystem approach and match the biophysical realities of the Baltic Sea area. Knowledge about ecosystem processes and their responses to a changing climate should be integrated within the decision process, both locally and nationally, in order to increase the awareness of, and to prepare for climate change impacts in coastal areas of the Baltic Sea.

Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment (CCASE): A new method for simulating future climate in seasonally snow-covered ecosystems.

PubMed

Templer, Pamela H; Reinmann, Andrew B; Sanders-DeMott, Rebecca; Sorensen, Patrick O; Juice, Stephanie M; Bowles, Francis; Sofen, Laura E; Harrison, Jamie L; Halm, Ian; Rustad, Lindsey; Martin, Mary E; Grant, Nicholas

2017-01-01

Climate models project an increase in mean annual air temperatures and a reduction in the depth and duration of winter snowpack for many mid and high latitude and high elevation seasonally snow-covered ecosystems over the next century. The combined effects of these changes in climate will lead to warmer soils in the growing season and increased frequency of soil freeze-thaw cycles (FTCs) in winter due to the loss of a continuous, insulating snowpack. Previous experiments have warmed soils or removed snow via shoveling or with shelters to mimic projected declines in the winter snowpack. To our knowledge, no experiment has examined the interactive effects of declining snowpack and increased frequency of soil FTCs, combined with soil warming in the snow-free season on terrestrial ecosystems. In addition, none have mimicked directly the projected increase in soil FTC frequency in tall statured forests that is expected as a result of a loss of insulating snow in winter. We established the Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment (CCASE) at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 2012 to assess the combined effects of these changes in climate on a variety of pedoclimate conditions, biogeochemical processes, and ecology of northern hardwood forests. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of creating soil FTC events in a tall statured ecosystem in winter to simulate the projected increase in soil FTC frequency over the next century and combines this projected change in winter climate with ecosystem warming throughout the snow-free season. Together, this experiment provides a new and more comprehensive approach for climate change experiments that can be adopted in other seasonally snow-covered ecosystems to simulate expected changes resulting from global air temperature rise.

Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment (CCASE): A new method for simulating future climate in seasonally snow-covered ecosystems

PubMed Central

Templer, Pamela H.; Reinmann, Andrew B.; Sanders-DeMott, Rebecca; Sorensen, Patrick O.; Juice, Stephanie M.; Bowles, Francis; Sofen, Laura E.; Harrison, Jamie L.; Halm, Ian; Rustad, Lindsey; Martin, Mary E.; Grant, Nicholas

2017-01-01

Climate models project an increase in mean annual air temperatures and a reduction in the depth and duration of winter snowpack for many mid and high latitude and high elevation seasonally snow-covered ecosystems over the next century. The combined effects of these changes in climate will lead to warmer soils in the growing season and increased frequency of soil freeze-thaw cycles (FTCs) in winter due to the loss of a continuous, insulating snowpack. Previous experiments have warmed soils or removed snow via shoveling or with shelters to mimic projected declines in the winter snowpack. To our knowledge, no experiment has examined the interactive effects of declining snowpack and increased frequency of soil FTCs, combined with soil warming in the snow-free season on terrestrial ecosystems. In addition, none have mimicked directly the projected increase in soil FTC frequency in tall statured forests that is expected as a result of a loss of insulating snow in winter. We established the Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment (CCASE) at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 2012 to assess the combined effects of these changes in climate on a variety of pedoclimate conditions, biogeochemical processes, and ecology of northern hardwood forests. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of creating soil FTC events in a tall statured ecosystem in winter to simulate the projected increase in soil FTC frequency over the next century and combines this projected change in winter climate with ecosystem warming throughout the snow-free season. Together, this experiment provides a new and more comprehensive approach for climate change experiments that can be adopted in other seasonally snow-covered ecosystems to simulate expected changes resulting from global air temperature rise. PMID:28207766

Patterns and Variation in Benthic Biodiversity in a Large Marine Ecosystem

PubMed Central

Lee, Jonathan D.

2015-01-01

While there is a persistent inverse relationship between latitude and species diversity across many taxa and ecosystems, deviations from this norm offer an opportunity to understand the conditions that contribute to large-scale diversity patterns. Marine systems, in particular, provide such an opportunity, as marine diversity does not always follow a strict latitudinal gradient, perhaps because several hypothesized drivers of the latitudinal diversity gradient are uncorrelated in marine systems. We used a large scale public monitoring dataset collected over an eight year period to examine benthic marine faunal biodiversity patterns for the continental shelf (55–183 m depth) and slope habitats (184–1280 m depth) off the US West Coast (47°20′N—32°40′N). We specifically asked whether marine biodiversity followed a strict latitudinal gradient, and if these latitudinal patterns varied across depth, in different benthic substrates, and over ecological time scales. Further, we subdivided our study area into three smaller regions to test whether coast-wide patterns of biodiversity held at regional scales, where local oceanographic processes tend to influence community structure and function. Overall, we found complex patterns of biodiversity on both the coast-wide and regional scales that differed by taxonomic group. Importantly, marine biodiversity was not always highest at low latitudes. We found that latitude, depth, substrate, and year were all important descriptors of fish and invertebrate diversity. Invertebrate richness and taxonomic diversity were highest at high latitudes and in deeper waters. Fish richness also increased with latitude, but exhibited a hump-shaped relationship with depth, increasing with depth up to the continental shelf break, ~200 m depth, and then decreasing in deeper waters. We found relationships between fish taxonomic and functional diversity and latitude, depth, substrate, and time at the regional scale, but not at the coast

Patterns and Variation in Benthic Biodiversity in a Large Marine Ecosystem.

PubMed

Piacenza, Susan E; Barner, Allison K; Benkwitt, Cassandra E; Boersma, Kate S; Cerny-Chipman, Elizabeth B; Ingeman, Kurt E; Kindinger, Tye L; Lee, Jonathan D; Lindsley, Amy J; Reimer, Jessica N; Rowe, Jennifer C; Shen, Chenchen; Thompson, Kevin A; Thurman, Lindsey L; Heppell, Selina S

2015-01-01

While there is a persistent inverse relationship between latitude and species diversity across many taxa and ecosystems, deviations from this norm offer an opportunity to understand the conditions that contribute to large-scale diversity patterns. Marine systems, in particular, provide such an opportunity, as marine diversity does not always follow a strict latitudinal gradient, perhaps because several hypothesized drivers of the latitudinal diversity gradient are uncorrelated in marine systems. We used a large scale public monitoring dataset collected over an eight year period to examine benthic marine faunal biodiversity patterns for the continental shelf (55-183 m depth) and slope habitats (184-1280 m depth) off the US West Coast (47°20'N-32°40'N). We specifically asked whether marine biodiversity followed a strict latitudinal gradient, and if these latitudinal patterns varied across depth, in different benthic substrates, and over ecological time scales. Further, we subdivided our study area into three smaller regions to test whether coast-wide patterns of biodiversity held at regional scales, where local oceanographic processes tend to influence community structure and function. Overall, we found complex patterns of biodiversity on both the coast-wide and regional scales that differed by taxonomic group. Importantly, marine biodiversity was not always highest at low latitudes. We found that latitude, depth, substrate, and year were all important descriptors of fish and invertebrate diversity. Invertebrate richness and taxonomic diversity were highest at high latitudes and in deeper waters. Fish richness also increased with latitude, but exhibited a hump-shaped relationship with depth, increasing with depth up to the continental shelf break, ~200 m depth, and then decreasing in deeper waters. We found relationships between fish taxonomic and functional diversity and latitude, depth, substrate, and time at the regional scale, but not at the coast-wide scale

Can schooling regulate marine populations and ecosystems?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maury, Olivier

2017-08-01

Schools, shoals and swarms are pervasive in the oceans. They have to provide very strong advantages to have been selected and generalized in the course of evolution. Auto-organized groups are usually assumed to provide facilitated encounters of reproduction partners, improved protection against predation, better foraging efficiency, and hydrodynamic gains. However, present theories regarding their evolutionary advantages do not provide an unambiguous explanation to their universality. In particular, the mechanisms commonly proposed to explain grouping provide little support to the formation of very large groups that are common in the sea (e.g. Rieucau et al., 2014). From literature review, data analysis and using a simple mathematical model, I show that large auto-organized groups appear at high population density while only small groups or dispersed individuals remain at low population density. Following, an analysis of tuna tagging data and simple theoretical developments show that large groups are likely to expose individuals to a dramatic decrease of individual foraging success and simultaneous increase of predatory and disease mortality, while small groups avoid those adverse feedbacks and provide maximum foraging success and protection against predation, as it is usually assumed. This would create an emergent density-dependent regulation of marine populations, preventing them from outbursts at high density, and protecting them at low density. This would be a major contribution to their resilience and a crucial process of ecosystems dynamics. A two-step evolutionary process acting at the individual level is proposed to explain how this apparently suicidal behaviour could have been selected and generalized. It explains how grouping would have permitted the emergence of extremely high fecundity life histories, despite their notorious propensity to destabilize populations. The potential implications of the ;grouping feedback; on population resilience, ecosystem

Abrupt climate change and transient climates during the Paleogene: a marine perspective.

PubMed

Zachos, J C; Lohmann, K C; Walker, J C; Wise, S W

1993-03-01

Detailed investigations of high latitude sequences recently collected by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) indicate that periods of rapid climate change often culminated in brief transient climates, with more extreme conditions than subsequent long term climates. Two examples of such events have been identified in the Paleogene; the first in latest Paleocene time in the middle of a warming trend that began several million years earlier: the second in earliest Oligocene time near the end of a Middle Eocene to Late Oligocene global cooling trend. Superimposed on the earlier event was a sudden and extreme warming of both high latitude sea surface and deep ocean waters. Imbedded in the latter transition was an abrupt decline in high latitude temperatures and the brief appearance of a full size continental ice-sheet on Antarctica. In both cases the climate extremes were not stable, lasting for less than a few hundred thousand years, indicating a temporary or transient climate state. Geochemical and sedimentological evidence suggest that both Paleogene climate events were accompanied by reorganizations in ocean circulation, and major perturbations in marine productivity and the global carbon cycle. The Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum was marked by reduced oceanic turnover and decreases in global delta 13C and in marine productivity, while the Early Oligocene glacial maximum was accompanied by intensification of deep ocean circulation and elevated delta 13C and productivity. It has been suggested that sudden changes in climate and/or ocean circulation might occur as a result of gradual forcing as certain physical thresholds are exceeded. We investigate the possibility that sudden reorganizations in ocean and/or atmosphere circulation during these abrupt transitions generated short-term positive feedbacks that briefly sustained these transient climatic states.

Abrupt climate change and transient climates during the Paleogene: a marine perspective

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zachos, J. C.; Lohmann, K. C.; Walker, J. C.; Wise, S. W.

1993-01-01

Detailed investigations of high latitude sequences recently collected by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) indicate that periods of rapid climate change often culminated in brief transient climates, with more extreme conditions than subsequent long term climates. Two examples of such events have been identified in the Paleogene; the first in latest Paleocene time in the middle of a warming trend that began several million years earlier: the second in earliest Oligocene time near the end of a Middle Eocene to Late Oligocene global cooling trend. Superimposed on the earlier event was a sudden and extreme warming of both high latitude sea surface and deep ocean waters. Imbedded in the latter transition was an abrupt decline in high latitude temperatures and the brief appearance of a full size continental ice-sheet on Antarctica. In both cases the climate extremes were not stable, lasting for less than a few hundred thousand years, indicating a temporary or transient climate state. Geochemical and sedimentological evidence suggest that both Paleogene climate events were accompanied by reorganizations in ocean circulation, and major perturbations in marine productivity and the global carbon cycle. The Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum was marked by reduced oceanic turnover and decreases in global delta 13C and in marine productivity, while the Early Oligocene glacial maximum was accompanied by intensification of deep ocean circulation and elevated delta 13C and productivity. It has been suggested that sudden changes in climate and/or ocean circulation might occur as a result of gradual forcing as certain physical thresholds are exceeded. We investigate the possibility that sudden reorganizations in ocean and/or atmosphere circulation during these abrupt transitions generated short-term positive feedbacks that briefly sustained these transient climatic states.

Parasites in marine food webs

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lafferty, Kevin D.

2013-01-01

Most species interactions probably involve parasites. This review considers the extent to which marine ecologists should consider parasites to fully understand marine communities. Parasites are influential parts of food webs in estuaries, temperate reefs, and coral reefs, but their ecological importance is seldom recognized. Though difficult to observe, parasites can have substantial biomass, and they can be just as common as free-living consumers after controlling for body mass and trophic level. Parasites have direct impacts on the energetics of their hosts and some affect host behaviors, with ecosystem-level consequences. Although they cause disease, parasites are sensitive components of ecosystems. In particular, they suffer secondary extinctions due to biodiversity loss. Some parasites can also return to a system after habitat restoration. For these reasons, parasites can make good indicators of ecosystem integrity. Fishing can indirectly increase or decrease parasite populations and the effects of climate change on parasites are likely to be equally as complex.

Interactive effects of climate change and biodiversity loss on ecosystem functioning.

PubMed

Pires, Aliny P F; Srivastava, Diane S; Marino, Nicholas A C; MacDonald, A Andrew M; Figueiredo-Barros, Marcos Paulo; Farjalla, Vinicius F

2018-05-01

Climate change and biodiversity loss are expected to simultaneously affect ecosystems, however research on how each driver mediates the effect of the other has been limited in scope. The multiple stressor framework emphasizes non-additive effects, but biodiversity may also buffer the effects of climate change, and climate change may alter which mechanisms underlie biodiversity-function relationships. Here, we performed an experiment using tank bromeliad ecosystems to test the various ways that rainfall changes and litter diversity may jointly determine ecological processes. Litter diversity and rainfall changes interactively affected multiple functions, but how depends on the process measured. High litter diversity buffered the effects of altered rainfall on detritivore communities, evidence of insurance against impacts of climate change. Altered rainfall affected the mechanisms by which litter diversity influenced decomposition, reducing the importance of complementary attributes of species (complementarity effects), and resulting in an increasing dependence on the maintenance of specific species (dominance effects). Finally, altered rainfall conditions prevented litter diversity from fueling methanogenesis, because such changes in rainfall reduced microbial activity by 58%. Together, these results demonstrate that the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss on ecosystems cannot be understood in isolation and interactions between these stressors can be multifaceted. © 2018 by the Ecological Society of America.

From Bacteria to Whales: Using Functional Size Spectra to Model Marine Ecosystems.

PubMed

Blanchard, Julia L; Heneghan, Ryan F; Everett, Jason D; Trebilco, Rowan; Richardson, Anthony J

2017-03-01

Size-based ecosystem modeling is emerging as a powerful way to assess ecosystem-level impacts of human- and environment-driven changes from individual-level processes. These models have evolved as mechanistic explanations for observed regular patterns of abundance across the marine size spectrum hypothesized to hold from bacteria to whales. Fifty years since the first size spectrum measurements, we ask how far have we come? Although recent modeling studies capture an impressive range of sizes, complexity, and real-world applications, ecosystem coverage is still only partial. We describe how this can be overcome by unifying functional traits with size spectra (which we call functional size spectra) and highlight the key knowledge gaps that need to be filled to model ecosystems from bacteria to whales. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.