Effects of macroalgae loss in an Antarctic marine food web: applying extinction thresholds to food web studies
Antarctica is seriously affected by climate change, particularly at the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) where a rapid regional warming is observed. Potter Cove is a WAP fjord at Shetland Islands that constitutes a biodiversity hotspot where over the last years, Potter Cove annual air temperatures...
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crpeerj:10.7717/peerj.5531 2024-06-23T07:47:43+00:00 Effects of macroalgae loss in an Antarctic marine food web: applying extinction thresholds to food web studies Cordone, Georgina Marina, Tomás I. Salinas, Vanesa Doyle, Santiago R. Saravia, Leonardo A. Momo, Fernando R. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET, Argentina) Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento and Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI, Germany) Marie Curie Action IRSES 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5531 https://peerj.com/articles/5531.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/5531.xml https://peerj.com/articles/5531.html en eng PeerJ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PeerJ volume 6, page e5531 ISSN 2167-8359 journal-article 2018 crpeerj https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5531 2024-06-11T04:28:38Z Antarctica is seriously affected by climate change, particularly at the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) where a rapid regional warming is observed. Potter Cove is a WAP fjord at Shetland Islands that constitutes a biodiversity hotspot where over the last years, Potter Cove annual air temperatures averages increased by 0.66 °C, coastal glaciers declined, and suspended particulate matter increased due to ice melting. Macroalgae are the main energy source for all consumers and detritivores of Potter Cove. Some effects of climate change favor pioneer macroalgae species that exploit new ice-free areas and can also decline rates of photosynthesis and intensify competition between species due to the increase of suspended particulate matter. In this study, we evaluated possible consequences of climate change at Potter Cove food web by simulating the extinction of macroalgae and detritus using a topological approach with thresholds of extinction. Thresholds represent the minimum number of incoming links necessary for species’ survival. When we simulated the extinctions of macroalgae species at random, a threshold of extinction beyond 50% was necessary to obtain a significant number of secondary extinctions, while with a 75% threshold a real collapse of the food web occurred. Our results indicate that Potter Cove food web is relative robust to macroalgae extinction. This is dramatically different from what has been found in other food webs, where the reduction of 10% in prey intake caused a disproportionate increase of secondary extinctions. Robustness of the Potter Cove food web was mediated by omnivory and redundancy, which had an important relevance in this food web. When we eliminated larger-biomass species more secondary extinctions occurred, a similar response was observed when more connected species were deleted, yet there was no correlation between species of larger-biomass and high-degree. This similarity could be explained because both criteria involved key species that produced an emerging effect on the food ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica PeerJ Publishing Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Potter Cove PeerJ 6 e5531 |
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Open Polar |
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PeerJ Publishing |
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crpeerj |
language |
English |
description |
Antarctica is seriously affected by climate change, particularly at the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) where a rapid regional warming is observed. Potter Cove is a WAP fjord at Shetland Islands that constitutes a biodiversity hotspot where over the last years, Potter Cove annual air temperatures averages increased by 0.66 °C, coastal glaciers declined, and suspended particulate matter increased due to ice melting. Macroalgae are the main energy source for all consumers and detritivores of Potter Cove. Some effects of climate change favor pioneer macroalgae species that exploit new ice-free areas and can also decline rates of photosynthesis and intensify competition between species due to the increase of suspended particulate matter. In this study, we evaluated possible consequences of climate change at Potter Cove food web by simulating the extinction of macroalgae and detritus using a topological approach with thresholds of extinction. Thresholds represent the minimum number of incoming links necessary for species’ survival. When we simulated the extinctions of macroalgae species at random, a threshold of extinction beyond 50% was necessary to obtain a significant number of secondary extinctions, while with a 75% threshold a real collapse of the food web occurred. Our results indicate that Potter Cove food web is relative robust to macroalgae extinction. This is dramatically different from what has been found in other food webs, where the reduction of 10% in prey intake caused a disproportionate increase of secondary extinctions. Robustness of the Potter Cove food web was mediated by omnivory and redundancy, which had an important relevance in this food web. When we eliminated larger-biomass species more secondary extinctions occurred, a similar response was observed when more connected species were deleted, yet there was no correlation between species of larger-biomass and high-degree. This similarity could be explained because both criteria involved key species that produced an emerging effect on the food ... |
author2 |
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET, Argentina) Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento and Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI, Germany) Marie Curie Action IRSES |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Cordone, Georgina Marina, Tomás I. Salinas, Vanesa Doyle, Santiago R. Saravia, Leonardo A. Momo, Fernando R. |
spellingShingle |
Cordone, Georgina Marina, Tomás I. Salinas, Vanesa Doyle, Santiago R. Saravia, Leonardo A. Momo, Fernando R. Effects of macroalgae loss in an Antarctic marine food web: applying extinction thresholds to food web studies |
author_facet |
Cordone, Georgina Marina, Tomás I. Salinas, Vanesa Doyle, Santiago R. Saravia, Leonardo A. Momo, Fernando R. |
author_sort |
Cordone, Georgina |
title |
Effects of macroalgae loss in an Antarctic marine food web: applying extinction thresholds to food web studies |
title_short |
Effects of macroalgae loss in an Antarctic marine food web: applying extinction thresholds to food web studies |
title_full |
Effects of macroalgae loss in an Antarctic marine food web: applying extinction thresholds to food web studies |
title_fullStr |
Effects of macroalgae loss in an Antarctic marine food web: applying extinction thresholds to food web studies |
title_full_unstemmed |
Effects of macroalgae loss in an Antarctic marine food web: applying extinction thresholds to food web studies |
title_sort |
effects of macroalgae loss in an antarctic marine food web: applying extinction thresholds to food web studies |
publisher |
PeerJ |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5531 https://peerj.com/articles/5531.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/5531.xml https://peerj.com/articles/5531.html |
geographic |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Potter Cove |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Potter Cove |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica |
op_source |
PeerJ volume 6, page e5531 ISSN 2167-8359 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5531 |
container_title |
PeerJ |
container_volume |
6 |
container_start_page |
e5531 |
_version_ |
1802651878521044992 |