Testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in Antarctica.
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&...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:efc267a96c134326a51fd5141f495066 2023-05-15T13:44:10+02:00 Testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in Antarctica. Jessica Melbourne-Thomas Andrew Constable Simon Wotherspoon Ben Raymond 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055093 https://doaj.org/article/efc267a96c134326a51fd5141f495066 EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3566216?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0055093 https://doaj.org/article/efc267a96c134326a51fd5141f495066 PLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 2, p e55093 (2013) Medicine R Science Q article 2013 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055093 2022-12-31T13:22:25Z 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. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica Southern Ocean Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Southern Ocean The Antarctic PLoS ONE 8 2 e55093 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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language |
English |
topic |
Medicine R Science Q |
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Medicine R Science Q Jessica Melbourne-Thomas Andrew Constable Simon Wotherspoon Ben Raymond Testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in Antarctica. |
topic_facet |
Medicine R Science Q |
description |
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. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jessica Melbourne-Thomas Andrew Constable Simon Wotherspoon Ben Raymond |
author_facet |
Jessica Melbourne-Thomas Andrew Constable Simon Wotherspoon Ben Raymond |
author_sort |
Jessica Melbourne-Thomas |
title |
Testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in Antarctica. |
title_short |
Testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in Antarctica. |
title_full |
Testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in Antarctica. |
title_fullStr |
Testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in Antarctica. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in Antarctica. |
title_sort |
testing paradigms of ecosystem change under climate warming in antarctica. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055093 https://doaj.org/article/efc267a96c134326a51fd5141f495066 |
geographic |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Southern Ocean The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Southern Ocean The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica Southern Ocean |
op_source |
PLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 2, p e55093 (2013) |
op_relation |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3566216?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0055093 https://doaj.org/article/efc267a96c134326a51fd5141f495066 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055093 |
container_title |
PLoS ONE |
container_volume |
8 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
e55093 |
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1766198412905021440 |