Species-specific vulnerability of Arctic copepods to oil contamination and global warming

• Main Authors: Dinh, Khuong Van, Nielsen, Torkel Gissel
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: /dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action; name=SDG 13 - Climate Action; /dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/life_below_water; name=SDG 14 - Life Below Water; Arctic; Greenland; Calanus glacialis; Disko Bay; Global warming; North Atlantic; Sea ice; Copepods
• Online Access: https://orbit.dtu.dk/en/publications/920e689d-1979-4af7-a579-30a4cac2987f

Arctic ecosystems are predicted to have more severe effects from global warming as during the last decades the temperatures have increased in this region at a rate of 2-4 times higher than the global average. In addition, oil exploitation and shipping activities in the Arctic are predicted to increase under global warming as the result of the retreat of sea ice, posing the risk of oil contamination. It is poorly known how cold adapted copepods in the Arctic deal with the combined effects of global warming and oil exposure. To address this, we exposed females of two copepods species Calanus glacialis and C. finmarchicus to pyrene at three temperatures: 2, 6 and 10°C. Both species co-exist in the Disko Bay, Greenland, but only C. glacialis is a true Arctic species while C. finmarchicus is of north Atlantic origin. Pyrene is one of the most toxic components of crude oil to marine copepods. The temperatures of 2, 6 and 10°C represent the mean sea water temperature during the reproductive season, the 4°C increase in mean temperature by 2100 as predicted by IPCC scenario RCP8.5 (2013) and the extreme sea water temperature, respectively, in Disko Bay. Fourdegree temperature increase did not have an effect on grazing rate and survival of both species. However, the extreme temperature (10°C) increased the grazing rate and mortality of C. glacialis, but not in C. finmarchicus. Exposure to high pyrene strongly reduced survival and grazing rate in both species and this pattern was independent of temperatures. Notably, exposure to high pyrene resulted in ca. 70% of mortality in C. finmarchicus, the species with North Atlantic Origin, that was two times higher than the mortality observed for C. glacialis, the true Arctic species. These results suggest that extreme temperature under global warming and oil contamination may drastically change the relative abundance of the Arctic pelagic copepod community by changing the species-specific vulnerability to extreme temperature and oil exposure