Herbivore diversity improves benthic community resilience to ocean acidification
Ocean acidification is expected to alter a wide range of marine systems, but there is great uncertainty about the outcome because indirect effects are often crucial in ecology. Work at volcanic seeps has shown that major ecological shifts occur due to chronic exposure to acidified seawater. Changes...
Published in: | Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology |
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Language: | English |
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/3898 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2015.04.019 |
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ftunivplympearl:oai:pearl.plymouth.ac.uk:10026.1/3898 2024-05-19T07:46:28+00:00 Herbivore diversity improves benthic community resilience to ocean acidification Baggini, C Issaris, Y Salomidi, M Hall-Spencer, J 2015-08 98-104 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/3898 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2015.04.019 en eng Elsevier BV ISSN:0022-0981 ISSN:1879-1697 E-ISSN:1879-1697 0022-0981 1879-1697 http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/3898 doi:10.1016/j.jembe.2015.04.019 Not known Functional redundancy Ocean acidification Species interactions journal-article Article 2015 ftunivplympearl https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2015.04.019 2024-05-01T00:07:16Z Ocean acidification is expected to alter a wide range of marine systems, but there is great uncertainty about the outcome because indirect effects are often crucial in ecology. Work at volcanic seeps has shown that major ecological shifts occur due to chronic exposure to acidified seawater. Changes in herbivore densities are often seen and this may interact with direct CO 2 effects to determine benthic community structure. Here, an exclusion experiment was used to test effects of herbivory in benthic communities along a pCO 2 gradient off Methana (Greece). A manipulative experiment was used to examine how large herbivores affected sublittoral algal communities as seawater carbon dioxide levels increased. Sea urchins and herbivorous fish dramatically reduced macroalgal biomass at background carbon dioxide levels; this effect was not hampered by increased pCO 2 despite lower sea urchin densities near the seeps, since herbivorous fish abundances increased concurrently. We found that carbon dioxide levels up to about 2000μatm are unlikely to reduce the role of herbivory in structuring benthic communities if tolerant species are able to replace those that are vulnerable. A shift from sea urchins to fish as main grazers highlights that ocean acidification may cause unexpected responses at the community level, and that maintaining high functional redundancy in marine ecosystems is key to improving their resilience. Article in Journal/Newspaper Ocean acidification PEARL (Plymouth Electronic Archiv & ResearchLibrary, Plymouth University) Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 469 98 104 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PEARL (Plymouth Electronic Archiv & ResearchLibrary, Plymouth University) |
op_collection_id |
ftunivplympearl |
language |
English |
topic |
Functional redundancy Ocean acidification Species interactions |
spellingShingle |
Functional redundancy Ocean acidification Species interactions Baggini, C Issaris, Y Salomidi, M Hall-Spencer, J Herbivore diversity improves benthic community resilience to ocean acidification |
topic_facet |
Functional redundancy Ocean acidification Species interactions |
description |
Ocean acidification is expected to alter a wide range of marine systems, but there is great uncertainty about the outcome because indirect effects are often crucial in ecology. Work at volcanic seeps has shown that major ecological shifts occur due to chronic exposure to acidified seawater. Changes in herbivore densities are often seen and this may interact with direct CO 2 effects to determine benthic community structure. Here, an exclusion experiment was used to test effects of herbivory in benthic communities along a pCO 2 gradient off Methana (Greece). A manipulative experiment was used to examine how large herbivores affected sublittoral algal communities as seawater carbon dioxide levels increased. Sea urchins and herbivorous fish dramatically reduced macroalgal biomass at background carbon dioxide levels; this effect was not hampered by increased pCO 2 despite lower sea urchin densities near the seeps, since herbivorous fish abundances increased concurrently. We found that carbon dioxide levels up to about 2000μatm are unlikely to reduce the role of herbivory in structuring benthic communities if tolerant species are able to replace those that are vulnerable. A shift from sea urchins to fish as main grazers highlights that ocean acidification may cause unexpected responses at the community level, and that maintaining high functional redundancy in marine ecosystems is key to improving their resilience. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Baggini, C Issaris, Y Salomidi, M Hall-Spencer, J |
author_facet |
Baggini, C Issaris, Y Salomidi, M Hall-Spencer, J |
author_sort |
Baggini, C |
title |
Herbivore diversity improves benthic community resilience to ocean acidification |
title_short |
Herbivore diversity improves benthic community resilience to ocean acidification |
title_full |
Herbivore diversity improves benthic community resilience to ocean acidification |
title_fullStr |
Herbivore diversity improves benthic community resilience to ocean acidification |
title_full_unstemmed |
Herbivore diversity improves benthic community resilience to ocean acidification |
title_sort |
herbivore diversity improves benthic community resilience to ocean acidification |
publisher |
Elsevier BV |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/3898 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2015.04.019 |
genre |
Ocean acidification |
genre_facet |
Ocean acidification |
op_relation |
ISSN:0022-0981 ISSN:1879-1697 E-ISSN:1879-1697 0022-0981 1879-1697 http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/3898 doi:10.1016/j.jembe.2015.04.019 |
op_rights |
Not known |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2015.04.019 |
container_title |
Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology |
container_volume |
469 |
container_start_page |
98 |
op_container_end_page |
104 |
_version_ |
1799486673281613824 |