University of Tasmania
Browse

File(s) under permanent embargo

Thermal biases and vulnerability to warming in the world’s marine fauna

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 13:53 authored by Richard Stuart-SmithRichard Stuart-Smith, Graham EdgarGraham Edgar, Neville BarrettNeville Barrett, Kininmonth, SJ, Bates, AE
A critical assumption underlying projections of biodiversity change associated with global warming is that ecological communities comprise balanced mixes of warm and cool affinity species which, on average, approximate local environmental temperatures. Nevertheless, we find most shallow water marine species occupy broad thermal distributions that are aggregated in either temperate or tropical realms. These distributional trends result in ocean-scale spatial thermal biases, where communities are dominated by species with warmer or cooler affinity than local environmental temperatures. We use community-level thermal deviations from local temperatures as a form of sensitivity to warming, and combine these with projected ocean warming data to predict warming-related loss of species from present-day communities over the next century. Large changes in species composition at the site-scale appear likely, and proximity to thermal limits, as inferred from present-day species’ distributional ranges, outweighs spatial variation in warming rates in contributing to predicted rates of local species loss.

History

Publication title

Nature

Volume

528

Issue

7580

Pagination

88-92

ISSN

0028-0836

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Place of publication

Macmillan Building, 4 Crinan St, London, England, N1 9Xw

Rights statement

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Marine biodiversity

Usage metrics

    University Of Tasmania

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC