Circumpolar dynamics of a marine top-predator track ocean warming rates.

• Published in: Global Change Biology
• Main Authors: Descamps, Sebastian, Anker-Nilssen, Tycho, Barrett, Robert T., Irons, D., Merkel, Flemming, Robertson, Gregory J., Yoccoz, Nigel Gilles, Mallory, Mark L., Montevecchi, William A., Boertmann, D., Artukhin, Yuri, Christensen-Dalsgaard, Signe, Erikstad, Kjell E., Gilchrist, H. Grant, Labansen, Aili, Lorentsen, Svein Håkon, Mosbech, Anders, Olsen, Bergur, Petersen, Aevar, Rail, Jean-Francois, Renner, Heather M., Strøm, H., Systad, Geir Helge, Wilhelm, Sabina I., Zelenskaya, Larisa
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2017
• Subjects: black‐legged kittiwake; climate change; nonlinear response; ocean warming rate; population decline; seabird; VDP::Mathematics and natural science: 400::Zoology and botany: 480::Ecology: 488; VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Zoologiske og botaniske fag: 480::Økologi: 488; Barrett; Black-legged Kittiwake; rissa tridactyla
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10037/12382; https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13715

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Descamps S, Anker‐Nilssen T, Barrett RT, et al. Circumpolar dynamics of a marine top‐predator track ocean warming rates. Glob Change Biol. 2017;23:3770–3780. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13715, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13715 . This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. Global warming is a nonlinear process, and temperature may increase in a stepwise manner. Periods of abrupt warming can trigger persistent changes in the state of ecosystems, also called regime shifts. The responses of organisms to abrupt warming and associated regime shifts can be unlike responses to periods of slow or moderate change. Understanding of nonlinearity in the biological responses to climate warming is needed to assess the consequences of ongoing climate change. Here, we demonstrate that the population dynamics of a long-lived, wide-ranging marine predator are associated with changes in the rate of ocean warming. Data from 556 colonies of black-legged kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla distributed throughout its breeding range revealed that an abrupt warming of sea-surface temperature in the 1990s coincided with steep kittiwake population decline. Periods of moderate warming in sea temperatures did not seem to affect kittiwake dynamics. The rapid warming observed in the 1990s may have driven large-scale, circumpolar marine ecosystem shifts that strongly affected kittiwakes through bottom-up effects. Our study sheds light on the nonlinear response of a circumpolar seabird to large-scale changes in oceanographic conditions and indicates that marine top predators may be more sensitive to the rate of ocean warming rather than to warming itself.