Understanding long-term changes in species abundance using a niche-based approach

International audience One of the major challenges to understanding population changes in ecology for assessment purposes is the difficulty in evaluating the suitability of an area for a given species. Here we used a new simple approach able to faithfully predict through time the abundance of two ke...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS ONE
Main Authors: Helaouet, Pierre, Beaugrand, Gregory, Edwards, Martin
Other Authors: Laboratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences (LOG) - UMR 8187 (LOG), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale (ULCO)-Université de Lille-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Nord )
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2013
Subjects:
[SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography
Calanus finmarchicus
Copepods
Online Access:https://hal.science/hal-00929709
https://hal.science/hal-00929709/document
https://hal.science/hal-00929709/file/pone.0079186.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079186
Description
Summary:International audience One of the major challenges to understanding population changes in ecology for assessment purposes is the difficulty in evaluating the suitability of an area for a given species. Here we used a new simple approach able to faithfully predict through time the abundance of two key zooplanktonic species by focusing on the relationship between the species' environmental preferences and their observed abundances. The approach is applied to the marine copepods Calanus finmarchicus and C. helgolandicus as a case study characterising the multidecadal dynamics of the North Sea ecosystem. We removed all North Sea data from the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) dataset and described for both species a simplified ecological niche using Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and CPR Phytoplankton Colour Index (PCI). We then modelled the dynamics of each species by associating the North Sea's environmental parameters to the species' ecological niches, thus creating a method to assess the suitability of this area. By using both C. finmarchicus and C. helgolandicus as indicators, the procedure reproduces the documented switches from cold to warm temperate states observed in the North Sea.

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