Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community
Major changes in North Atlantic zooplankton communities in recent decades have been linked to climate change but the roles of environmental drivers are often complex. High temporal resolution data is required to disentangle the natural seasonal drivers from additional sources of variability in highl...
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ftnerc:oai:nora.nerc.ac.uk:533410 2023-05-15T17:34:37+02:00 Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community Wells, Seòna R Bresnan, Eileen Cook, Kathryn Eerkes-Medrano, Dafne Machairopoulou, Margarita Mayor, Daniel J Rabe, Berit Wright, Peter J Ji, Rubao 2021-09-10 text http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/533410/ https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/533410/1/fsab177.pdf https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab177 en eng https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/533410/1/fsab177.pdf Wells, Seòna R; Bresnan, Eileen; Cook, Kathryn orcid:0000-0001-8590-3011 Eerkes-Medrano, Dafne; Machairopoulou, Margarita; Mayor, Daniel J orcid:0000-0002-1295-0041 Rabe, Berit; Wright, Peter J; Ji, Rubao. 2021 Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 79 (3). 844-854. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab177 <https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab177> ogl_3 Publication - Article PeerReviewed 2021 ftnerc https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab177 2023-02-04T19:53:40Z Major changes in North Atlantic zooplankton communities in recent decades have been linked to climate change but the roles of environmental drivers are often complex. High temporal resolution data is required to disentangle the natural seasonal drivers from additional sources of variability in highly heterogeneous marine systems. Here, physical and plankton abundance data spanning 2003–2017 from a weekly long-term monitoring site on the west coast of Scotland were used to investigate the cause of an increasing decline to approximately -80± 5% in annual average total zooplankton abundance from 2011 to 2017. Generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs), with an autoregressive correlation structure, were used to examine seasonal and inter-annual trends in zooplankton abundance and their relationship with environmental variables. Substantial declines were detected across all dominant taxa, with ∼ 30–70% of the declines in abundance explained by a concurrent negative trend in salinity, alongside the seasonal cycle, with the additional significance of food availability found for some taxa. Temperature was found to drive seasonal variation but not the long-term trends in the zooplankton community. The reduction in salinity had the largest effect on several important taxa. Salinity changes could partly be explained by locally higher freshwater run-off driven by precipitation as well as potential links to changes in offshore water masses. The results highlight that changes in salinity, caused by either freshwater input (expected from climate predictions) or fresher offshore water masses, may adversely impact coastal zooplankton communities and the predators that depend on them. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic Natural Environment Research Council: NERC Open Research Archive ICES Journal of Marine Science 79 3 844 854 |
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Open Polar |
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Natural Environment Research Council: NERC Open Research Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftnerc |
language |
English |
description |
Major changes in North Atlantic zooplankton communities in recent decades have been linked to climate change but the roles of environmental drivers are often complex. High temporal resolution data is required to disentangle the natural seasonal drivers from additional sources of variability in highly heterogeneous marine systems. Here, physical and plankton abundance data spanning 2003–2017 from a weekly long-term monitoring site on the west coast of Scotland were used to investigate the cause of an increasing decline to approximately -80± 5% in annual average total zooplankton abundance from 2011 to 2017. Generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs), with an autoregressive correlation structure, were used to examine seasonal and inter-annual trends in zooplankton abundance and their relationship with environmental variables. Substantial declines were detected across all dominant taxa, with ∼ 30–70% of the declines in abundance explained by a concurrent negative trend in salinity, alongside the seasonal cycle, with the additional significance of food availability found for some taxa. Temperature was found to drive seasonal variation but not the long-term trends in the zooplankton community. The reduction in salinity had the largest effect on several important taxa. Salinity changes could partly be explained by locally higher freshwater run-off driven by precipitation as well as potential links to changes in offshore water masses. The results highlight that changes in salinity, caused by either freshwater input (expected from climate predictions) or fresher offshore water masses, may adversely impact coastal zooplankton communities and the predators that depend on them. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wells, Seòna R Bresnan, Eileen Cook, Kathryn Eerkes-Medrano, Dafne Machairopoulou, Margarita Mayor, Daniel J Rabe, Berit Wright, Peter J Ji, Rubao |
spellingShingle |
Wells, Seòna R Bresnan, Eileen Cook, Kathryn Eerkes-Medrano, Dafne Machairopoulou, Margarita Mayor, Daniel J Rabe, Berit Wright, Peter J Ji, Rubao Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community |
author_facet |
Wells, Seòna R Bresnan, Eileen Cook, Kathryn Eerkes-Medrano, Dafne Machairopoulou, Margarita Mayor, Daniel J Rabe, Berit Wright, Peter J Ji, Rubao |
author_sort |
Wells, Seòna R |
title |
Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community |
title_short |
Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community |
title_full |
Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community |
title_fullStr |
Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community |
title_full_unstemmed |
Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community |
title_sort |
environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/533410/ https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/533410/1/fsab177.pdf https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab177 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/533410/1/fsab177.pdf Wells, Seòna R; Bresnan, Eileen; Cook, Kathryn orcid:0000-0001-8590-3011 Eerkes-Medrano, Dafne; Machairopoulou, Margarita; Mayor, Daniel J orcid:0000-0002-1295-0041 Rabe, Berit; Wright, Peter J; Ji, Rubao. 2021 Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 79 (3). 844-854. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab177 <https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab177> |
op_rights |
ogl_3 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab177 |
container_title |
ICES Journal of Marine Science |
container_volume |
79 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
844 |
op_container_end_page |
854 |
_version_ |
1766133506125070336 |