Author
Listed:
- Michael T. Burrows
(Scottish Marine Institute, Dunbeg)
- Amanda E. Bates
(University of Southampton
Memorial University of Newfoundland)
- Mark J. Costello
(University of Auckland)
- Martin Edwards
(Citadel Hill Laboratory
Plymouth University)
- Graham J. Edgar
(University of Tasmania)
- Clive J. Fox
(Scottish Marine Institute, Dunbeg)
- Benjamin S. Halpern
(University of California
University of California)
- Jan G. Hiddink
(School of Ocean Sciences Bangor University)
- Malin L. Pinsky
(Rutgers University)
- Ryan D. Batt
(Rutgers University)
- Jorge García Molinos
(Hokkaido University
Hokkaido University
Hokkaido University)
- Benjamin L. Payne
(Scottish Marine Institute, Dunbeg)
- David S. Schoeman
(University of the Sunshine Coast
Nelson Mandela University)
- Rick D. Stuart-Smith
(University of Tasmania)
- Elvira S. Poloczanska
(Alfred Wegener Institute
The University of Queensland)
Abstract
As ocean temperatures rise, species distributions are tracking towards historically cooler regions in line with their thermal affinity1,2. However, different responses of species to warming and changed species interactions make predicting biodiversity redistribution and relative abundance a challenge3,4. Here, we use three decades of fish and plankton survey data to assess how warming changes the relative dominance of warm-affinity and cold-affinity species5,6. Regions with stable temperatures (for example, the Northeast Pacific and Gulf of Mexico) show little change in dominance structure, while areas with warming (for example, the North Atlantic) see strong shifts towards warm-water species dominance. Importantly, communities whose species pools had diverse thermal affinities and a narrower range of thermal tolerance showed greater sensitivity, as anticipated from simulations. The composition of fish communities changed less than expected in regions with strong temperature depth gradients. There, species track temperatures by moving deeper2,7, rather than horizontally, analogous to elevation shifts in land plants8. Temperature thus emerges as a fundamental driver for change in marine systems, with predictable restructuring of communities in the most rapidly warming areas using metrics based on species thermal affinities. The ready and predictable dominance shifts suggest a strong prognosis of resilience to climate change for these communities.
Suggested Citation
Michael T. Burrows & Amanda E. Bates & Mark J. Costello & Martin Edwards & Graham J. Edgar & Clive J. Fox & Benjamin S. Halpern & Jan G. Hiddink & Malin L. Pinsky & Ryan D. Batt & Jorge García Molinos, 2019.
"Ocean community warming responses explained by thermal affinities and temperature gradients,"
Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 9(12), pages 959-963, December.
Handle:
RePEc:nat:natcli:v:9:y:2019:i:12:d:10.1038_s41558-019-0631-5
DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0631-5
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the
CitEc Project, subscribe to its
RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
- Chen, Bingzhang, 2022.
"Thermal diversity affects community responses to warming,"
Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 464(C).
- Heinichen, Margaret & McManus, M. Conor & Lucey, Sean M. & Aydin, Kerim & Humphries, Austin & Innes-Gold, Anne & Collie, Jeremy, 2022.
"Incorporating temperature-dependent fish bioenergetics into a Narragansett Bay food web model,"
Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 466(C).
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:9:y:2019:i:12:d:10.1038_s41558-019-0631-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.