Climate change and trophic response of the Antarctic bottom fauna

BackgroundAs Earth warms, temperate and subpolar marine species will increasingly shift their geographic ranges poleward. The endemic shelf fauna of Antarctica is especially vulnerable to climate-mediated biological invasions because cold temperatures currently exclude the durophagous (shell-breakin...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS ONE
Main Authors: Aronson, Richard B, Moody, Ryan M, Ivany, Linda C, Blake, Daniel B, Werner, John E, Glass, Alexander
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:https://scholia.toolforge.org/work/Q28755668
http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q28755668
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2632738
https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0004385
Description
Summary:BackgroundAs Earth warms, temperate and subpolar marine species will increasingly shift their geographic ranges poleward. The endemic shelf fauna of Antarctica is especially vulnerable to climate-mediated biological invasions because cold temperatures currently exclude the durophagous (shell-breaking) predators that structure shallow-benthic communities elsewhere.Methodology/principal findingsWe used the Eocene fossil record from Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula, to project specifically how global warming will reorganize the nearshore benthos of Antarctica. A long-term cooling trend, which began with a sharp temperature drop approximately 41 Ma (million years ago), eliminated durophagous predators-teleosts (modern bony fish), decapod crustaceans (crabs and lobsters) and almost all neoselachian elasmobranchs (modern sharks and rays)-from Antarctic nearshore waters after the Eocene. Even prior to those extinctions, durophagous predators became less active as coastal sea temperatures declined from 41 Ma to the end of the Eocene, approximately 33.5 Ma. In response, dense populations of suspension-feeding ophiuroids and crinoids abruptly appeared. Dense aggregations of brachiopods transcended the cooling event with no apparent change in predation pressure, nor were there changes in the frequency of shell-drilling predation on venerid bivalves.Conclusions/significanceRapid warming in the Southern Ocean is now removing the physiological barriers to shell-breaking predators, and crabs are returning to the Antarctic Peninsula. Over the coming decades to centuries, we predict a rapid reversal of the Eocene trends. Increasing predation will reduce or eliminate extant dense populations of suspension-feeding echinoderms from nearshore habitats along the Peninsula while brachiopods will continue to form large populations, and the intensity of shell-drilling predation on infaunal bivalves will not change appreciably. In time the ecological effects of global warming could spread to other portions of the Antarctic coast. The ...