Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean
Antarctic krill is a cold water species, an increasingly important fishery resource and a major prey item for many fish, birds and mammals in the Southern Ocean. The fishery and the summer foraging sites of many of these predators are concentrated between 0° and 90°W. Parts of this quadrant have exp...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3749108 2023-05-15T13:49:14+02:00 Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean Hill, Simeon L. Phillips, Tony Atkinson, Angus 2013-08-21 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3749108 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23991072 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072246 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3749108 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23991072 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072246 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2013 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072246 2013-09-05T04:07:03Z Antarctic krill is a cold water species, an increasingly important fishery resource and a major prey item for many fish, birds and mammals in the Southern Ocean. The fishery and the summer foraging sites of many of these predators are concentrated between 0° and 90°W. Parts of this quadrant have experienced recent localised sea surface warming of up to 0.2°C per decade, and projections suggest that further widespread warming of 0.27° to 1.08°C will occur by the late 21st century. We assessed the potential influence of this projected warming on Antarctic krill habitat with a statistical model that links growth to temperature and chlorophyll concentration. The results divide the quadrant into two zones: a band around the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in which habitat quality is particularly vulnerable to warming, and a southern area which is relatively insensitive. Our analysis suggests that the direct effects of warming could reduce the area of growth habitat by up to 20%. The reduction in growth habitat within the range of predators, such as Antarctic fur seals, that forage from breeding sites on South Georgia could be up to 55%, and the habitat’s ability to support Antarctic krill biomass production within this range could be reduced by up to 68%. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the effects of a 50% change in summer chlorophyll concentration could be more significant than the direct effects of warming. A reduction in primary production could lead to further habitat degradation but, even if chlorophyll increased by 50%, projected warming would still cause some degradation of the habitat accessible to predators. While there is considerable uncertainty in these projections, they suggest that future climate change could have a significant negative effect on Antarctic krill growth habitat and, consequently, on Southern Ocean biodiversity and ecosystem services. Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Fur Seals Antarctic Krill Southern Ocean PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic Weddell PLoS ONE 8 8 e72246 |
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Research Article Hill, Simeon L. Phillips, Tony Atkinson, Angus Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean |
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Research Article |
description |
Antarctic krill is a cold water species, an increasingly important fishery resource and a major prey item for many fish, birds and mammals in the Southern Ocean. The fishery and the summer foraging sites of many of these predators are concentrated between 0° and 90°W. Parts of this quadrant have experienced recent localised sea surface warming of up to 0.2°C per decade, and projections suggest that further widespread warming of 0.27° to 1.08°C will occur by the late 21st century. We assessed the potential influence of this projected warming on Antarctic krill habitat with a statistical model that links growth to temperature and chlorophyll concentration. The results divide the quadrant into two zones: a band around the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in which habitat quality is particularly vulnerable to warming, and a southern area which is relatively insensitive. Our analysis suggests that the direct effects of warming could reduce the area of growth habitat by up to 20%. The reduction in growth habitat within the range of predators, such as Antarctic fur seals, that forage from breeding sites on South Georgia could be up to 55%, and the habitat’s ability to support Antarctic krill biomass production within this range could be reduced by up to 68%. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the effects of a 50% change in summer chlorophyll concentration could be more significant than the direct effects of warming. A reduction in primary production could lead to further habitat degradation but, even if chlorophyll increased by 50%, projected warming would still cause some degradation of the habitat accessible to predators. While there is considerable uncertainty in these projections, they suggest that future climate change could have a significant negative effect on Antarctic krill growth habitat and, consequently, on Southern Ocean biodiversity and ecosystem services. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hill, Simeon L. Phillips, Tony Atkinson, Angus |
author_facet |
Hill, Simeon L. Phillips, Tony Atkinson, Angus |
author_sort |
Hill, Simeon L. |
title |
Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean |
title_short |
Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean |
title_full |
Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean |
title_fullStr |
Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean |
title_full_unstemmed |
Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean |
title_sort |
potential climate change effects on the habitat of antarctic krill in the weddell quadrant of the southern ocean |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3749108 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23991072 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072246 |
geographic |
Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic Weddell |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic Weddell |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Fur Seals Antarctic Krill Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Fur Seals Antarctic Krill Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3749108 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23991072 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072246 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072246 |
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PLoS ONE |
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8 |
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e72246 |
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