Reorganization of North Atlantic Marine Copepod Biodiversity and Climate

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Beaugrand, Grégory, Reid, Philip C., Ibañez, Frédéric, Lindley, J. Alistair, Edwards, Martin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2002
• Subjects: North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1071329; https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1071329

We provide evidence of large-scale changes in the biogeography of calanoid copepod crustaceans in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean and European shelf seas. We demonstrate that strong biogeographical shifts in all copepod assemblages have occurred with a northward extension of more than 10° latitude of warm-water species associated with a decrease in the number of colder-water species. These biogeographical shifts are in agreement with recent changes in the spatial distribution and phenology detected for many taxonomic groups in terrestrial European ecosystems and are related to both the increasing trend in Northern Hemisphere temperature and the North Atlantic Oscillation.