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Extreme climatic event drives range contraction of a habitat-forming species.
Proc Biol Sci. 2013 Mar 07; 280(1754):20122829.PB

Abstract

Species distributions have shifted in response to global warming in all major ecosystems on the Earth. Despite cogent evidence for these changes, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood and currently imply gradual shifts. Yet there is an increasing appreciation of the role of discrete events in driving ecological change. We show how a marine heat wave (HW) eliminated a prominent habitat-forming seaweed, Scytothalia dorycarpa, at its warm distribution limit, causing a range contraction of approximately 100 km (approx. 5% of its global distribution). Seawater temperatures during the HW exceeded the seaweed's physiological threshold and caused extirpation of marginal populations, which are unlikely to recover owing to life-history traits and oceanographic processes. Scytothalia dorycarpa is an important canopy-forming seaweed in temperate Australia, and loss of the species at its range edge has caused structural changes at the community level and is likely to have ecosystem-level implications. We show that extreme warming events, which are increasing in magnitude and frequency, can force step-wise changes in species distributions in marine ecosystems. As such, return times of these events have major implications for projections of species distributions and ecosystem structure, which have typically been based on gradual warming trends.

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Authors+Show Affiliations

Smale DA
Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth PL1 2PB, UK.
Wernberg T
No affiliation info available

MeSH

AnimalsEcosystemGlobal WarmingSeawaterSeaweedTemperatureWestern Australia

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Language

eng

PubMed ID

23325774

Citation

Smale, Dan A., and Thomas Wernberg. "Extreme Climatic Event Drives Range Contraction of a Habitat-forming Species." Proceedings. Biological Sciences, vol. 280, no. 1754, 2013, p. 20122829.
Smale DA, Wernberg T. Extreme climatic event drives range contraction of a habitat-forming species. Proc Biol Sci. 2013;280(1754):20122829.
Smale, D. A., & Wernberg, T. (2013). Extreme climatic event drives range contraction of a habitat-forming species. Proceedings. Biological Sciences, 280(1754), 20122829. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2829
Smale DA, Wernberg T. Extreme Climatic Event Drives Range Contraction of a Habitat-forming Species. Proc Biol Sci. 2013 Mar 7;280(1754):20122829. PubMed PMID: 23325774.
* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case
TY - JOUR T1 - Extreme climatic event drives range contraction of a habitat-forming species. AU - Smale,Dan A, AU - Wernberg,Thomas, Y1 - 2013/01/16/ PY - 2013/1/18/entrez PY - 2013/1/18/pubmed PY - 2013/9/14/medline SP - 20122829 EP - 20122829 JF - Proceedings. Biological sciences JO - Proc Biol Sci VL - 280 IS - 1754 N2 - Species distributions have shifted in response to global warming in all major ecosystems on the Earth. Despite cogent evidence for these changes, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood and currently imply gradual shifts. Yet there is an increasing appreciation of the role of discrete events in driving ecological change. We show how a marine heat wave (HW) eliminated a prominent habitat-forming seaweed, Scytothalia dorycarpa, at its warm distribution limit, causing a range contraction of approximately 100 km (approx. 5% of its global distribution). Seawater temperatures during the HW exceeded the seaweed's physiological threshold and caused extirpation of marginal populations, which are unlikely to recover owing to life-history traits and oceanographic processes. Scytothalia dorycarpa is an important canopy-forming seaweed in temperate Australia, and loss of the species at its range edge has caused structural changes at the community level and is likely to have ecosystem-level implications. We show that extreme warming events, which are increasing in magnitude and frequency, can force step-wise changes in species distributions in marine ecosystems. As such, return times of these events have major implications for projections of species distributions and ecosystem structure, which have typically been based on gradual warming trends. SN - 1471-2954 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/23325774/Extreme_climatic_event_drives_range_contraction_of_a_habitat_forming_species_ L2 - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2012.2829?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub=pubmed DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -