Marine biodiversity-ecosystem functions under uncertain environmental futures

Anthropogenic activity is currently leading to dramatic transformations of ecosystems and losses of biodiversity. The recognition that these ecosystems provide services that are essential for human well-being has led to a major interest in the forms of the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Main Authors: Bulling, Mark T., Hicks, Natalie, Murray, Leigh, Paterson, David Maxwell, Raffaelli, Dave, White, Piran C. L., Solan, Martin
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2010
Subjects:
benthic
climate change
bioturbation
ocean acidification
uncertainty
SEDIMENT NUTRIENT FLUX
CLIMATE-CHANGE
BENTHIC INVERTEBRATES
SPECIES RICHNESS
NEREIS-VIRENS
IN-SITU
DIVERSITY
RESPONSES
Ocean acidification
Online Access:https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/researchoutput/marine-biodiversityecosystem-functions-under-uncertain-environmental-futures(115d0c88-9d5f-470b-9397-57484dc8e046).html
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0022
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77954698836&partnerID=8YFLogxK
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2880130
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Summary:Anthropogenic activity is currently leading to dramatic transformations of ecosystems and losses of biodiversity. The recognition that these ecosystems provide services that are essential for human well-being has led to a major interest in the forms of the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship. However, there is a lack of studies examining the impact of climate change on these relationships and it remains unclear how multiple climatic drivers may affect levels of ecosystem functioning. Here, we examine the roles of two important climate change variables, temperature and concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, on the relationship between invertebrate species richness and nutrient release in a model benthic estuarine system. We found a positive relationship between invertebrate species richness and the levels of release of NH4-N into the water column, but no effect of species richness on the release of PO4-P. Higher temperatures and greater concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide had a negative impact on nutrient release. Importantly, we found significant interactions between the climate variables, indicating that reliably predicting the effects of future climate change will not be straightforward as multiple drivers are unlikely to have purely additive effects, resulting in increased levels of uncertainty.

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