Chapter 6. Vulnerabilities: invertebrate taxa (indicators for vulnerable marine ecosystems)

• Main Authors: Xavier, Joana R, Carreiro Silva, Marina, Colaço, Ana, Le Bris, Nadine, Levin, Lisa
• Format: Report
• Language: unknown
• Published: FAO 2018
• Subjects: Deep sea organisms; Xenophyophores; Porifera; Corals; climate change; VME indicator; life strategies; physiological adaptations; European Union (EU); Horizon 2020; Grant Agreement No 679849; Deep-sea Sponge Grounds Ecosystems of the North Atlantic: an integrated approach towards their preservation and sustainable exploitation; SponGES; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/4298534; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4298534

ABSTRACT Despite considerable technological advances in recent decades that have enabled the ecosystems of the deeper parts of the oceans to be discovered and explored, large knowledge gaps still exist on the biology and ecology of such ecosystems. This is largely due to challenges related to observation and experimentation in situ, and to maintaining deepwater species under ex situ experimental conditions. Deep-sea organisms have evolved life strategies and physiological adaptations (e.g. slow metabolism and growth rates, high longevity, and late maturity) that allow them to succeed in the cold and generally food-limited deep-sea environment but that may partially impair their ability to physiologically compensate for and adapt to changes in climate. Therefore, a deeper understanding of species’ biological and ecological traits, as well as their tolerance thresholds to single and cumulative climatic stressors (e.g. temperature and nutrition, pH and O2) is much needed. Most experiments to date have been conducted under short-term (i.e. acute) conditions, thereby hindering the mechanisms potentially involved in species resilience and acclimation. Studies addressing the impact of climate change on species gametogenesis, reproductive output, or larval development and physiology are also largely lacking. While efforts continue to build a knowledge base on the impacts over the physiological and ecological processes affecting individual species, it is also necessary to start to address the impacts that climate change will have on wider ecosystem functioning.