Projects per year
Abstract
Past meta-analyses of the response of marine organisms to climate change have examined a limited range of locations, taxonomic groups and/or biological responses. This has precluded a robust overview of the effect of climate change in the global ocean. Here, we synthesized all available studies of the consistency of marine ecological observations with expectations under climate change. This yielded a meta-database of 1,735 marine biological responses for which either regional or global climate change was considered as a driver. Included were instances of marine taxa responding as expected, in a manner inconsistent with expectations, and taxa demonstrating no response. From this database, 81-83% of all observations for distribution, phenology, community composition, abundance, demography and calcification across taxa and ocean basins were consistent with the expected impacts of climate change. Of the species responding to climate change, rates of distribution shifts were, on average, consistent with those required to track ocean surface temperature changes. Conversely, we did not find a relationship between regional shifts in spring phenology and the seasonality of temperature. Rates of observed shifts in species' distributions and phenology are comparable to, or greater, than those for terrestrial systems.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 919-925 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Nature Climate Change |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 10 |
Early online date | 04 Aug 2013 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2013 |
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Global imprint of climate change on marine life'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
-
Shifting climate as a predictor for change in marine biodiversity at local, regional & global basis
Moore, P.
Natural Environment Research Council
19 Dec 2012 → 18 Dec 2015
Project: Externally funded research