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opencc-zeroNov 2020View details →

Data from: Climate drives the geography of marine consumption by changing predator communities

The global distribution of primary production and consumption by humans (fisheries) is well-documented, but we have no map linking the central ecological process of consumption within food webs to temperature and other ecological drivers. Using standardized assays that span 105° of latitude on four continents, we show that rates of bait consumption by generalist predators in shallow marine ecosystems are tightly linked to both temperature and the composition of consumer assemblages. Unexpectedly, rates of consumption peaked at midlatitudes (25 to 35°) in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres across both seagrass and unvegetated sediment habitats. This pattern contrasts with terrestrial systems, where biotic interactions reportedly weaken away from the equator, but it parallels an emerging pattern of a subtropical peak in marine biodiversity. The higher consumption at midlatitudes was closely related to the type of consumers present, which explained rates of consumption better than consumer density, biomass, species diversity, or habitat. Indeed, the apparent effect of temperature on consumption was mostly driven by temperature-associated turnover in consumer community composition. Our findings reinforce the key influence of climate warming on altered species composition and highlight its implications for the functioning of Earth's ecosystems.

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Examining the diversity, stability and functioning of marine fish communities across a latitudinal gradient

Aim: As anthropogenic stressors on the biosphere intensify, understanding how communities respond to disturbances is critical. Biodiversity is often thought to promote the stability of communities over time and enhance ecosystem functioning. However, results have been inconsistent, and the multifaceted linkages among diversity, stability, and functioning under acute disturbances remain poorly understood. We experimentally tested the responses of marine fish communities to disturbance (i.e., acute habitat loss) across a diversity gradient spanning 35º degrees of latitude in the western Atlantic Ocean to assess the diversity-stability relationship and the interplay between diversity, stability, and fish biomass recovery (as a proxy for function) in marine fish communities. Location: Western Atlantic Ocean (Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Florida [USA], Belize, and Panama). Time period: 2016 – 2017 Major taxa studied: Small, bottom-dwelling ('cryptobenthic') fishes Results: Diversity showed a negative effect on community stability at both the regional (across docks) and local (within docks) scales. Similarly, local diversity was negatively correlated with ecosystem function. These effects are exacerbated by the habitat loss imposed via our experimental treatment. Main conclusions: Our results suggest that habitat loss may more intensively re-shuffle diverse, tropical communities, which impacts biomass recovery, our proxy of functioning. Contrary to ecological theory, in small-bodied, benthos-associated vertebrate communities, biodiversity may neither promote stability nor functioning, suggesting that human disturbances may be particularly impactful in tropical, high-diversity ecosystems.

Figure S4 in Spatiotemporal patterns in marine fish and cephalopods communities across scales: using an autoregressive spatiotemporal clustering model. A study of fish and cephalopods of the Eastern English Channel

Figure S4. – Spatial-temporal correlation matrix at a 782 km2 (A) and 1043 km2 (B) scale displaying correlation from strongly negative (dark blue) to strongly positive (dark red).

Figure S2 in Spatiotemporal patterns in marine fish and cephalopods communities across scales: using an autoregressive spatiotemporal clustering model. A study of fish and cephalopods of the Eastern English Channel

Figure S2. – Spatial hierarchical clustering at a 782 km2 (A) and 1043 km2 (B) scale. The rectangle outlines the communities that where find statistically significant by ASTEC given the approximately unbiased p-values expressed as proportion (red).

Figure 2 in Spatiotemporal patterns in marine fish and cephalopods communities across scales: using an autoregressive spatiotemporal clustering model. A study of fish and cephalopods of the Eastern English Channel

Figure 2. – Spatial correlation matrix at a 522 km2 scale displaying correlation from strongly negative (dark blue) to strongly positive (dark red).

Figure 11 in Spatiotemporal patterns in marine fish and cephalopods communities across scales: using an autoregressive spatiotemporal clustering model. A study of fish and cephalopods of the Eastern English Channel

Figure 11. – Scophthalmus rhombus from low (blue) to high (red) median densities of numbers/ km2 in log scale for 522 km2 for the Eastern English Channel.

Figure S5 in Spatiotemporal patterns in marine fish and cephalopods communities across scales: using an autoregressive spatiotemporal clustering model. A study of fish and cephalopods of the Eastern English Channel

Figure S5. – Spatial-temporal hierarchical clustering at a 782 km2 (A) and 1043 km2 (B) scale. The rectangle outlines the communities that where find statistically significant by ASTEC given the approximately unbiased p-values expressed as proportion (red).

opencc-by-4.0Feb 2018View details →

Data and scripts for Predictable Ecological Response to Rising CO2 of a Community of Marine Phytoplankton

Rising atmospheric CO2 and ocean acidification are fundamentally altering conditions for life of all marine organisms, including phytoplankton. Differences in CO2 related physiology between major phytoplankton taxa lead to differences in their ability to take up and utilise CO2. These differences may cause predictable shifts in the composition of marine phytoplankton communities in response to rising atmospheric CO2. We report an experiment in which 7 species of marine phytoplankton, belonging to 4 major taxonomic groups (cyanobacteria, chlorophytes, diatoms and coccolithophores) were grown at both ambient (500 µatm) and future (1000 µatm) CO2 levels. These phytoplankton were grown as individual species, as cultures of pairs of species and as a community assemblage of all seven species in two culture regimes (high-nitrogen batch cultures and lower-nitrogen semi-continuous cultures, though not under nitrogen limitation).  All phytoplankton species tested in this study increased their growth rates under elevated CO2 independent of the culture regime. We also find that, despite species-specific variation in growth response to high CO2, the identity of major taxonomic groups provides a good prediction of changes in population growth and competitive ability under high CO2. The CO2-induced growth response is a good predictor of CO2-induced changes in competition (R2>0.93) and community composition (R2>0.73). This study suggests that it may be possible to infer how marine phytoplankton communities respond to rising CO2 levels from the knowledge of the physiology of major taxonomic groups, but that these predictions may require further characterisation of these traits across a diversity of growth conditions. These findings must be validated in the context of limitation by other nutrients. Also, in natural communities of phytoplankton, numerous other factors that may all respond to changes in CO2, including nitrogen fixation, grazing and variation in the limiting resource will likely complicate this prediction.

opencc-zeroMay 2023View details →

Microplastics effects on marine microbial communities and their functioning

Microplastics pervade ocean ecosystems. Despite their effects on individuals or populations are well documented, the consequences of microplastics on ecosystem functioning, especially regarding lower trophic levels, are still largely unknown. Here we show how microplastics alter the structure and functioning of pelagic microbial ecosystems. Using experimental pelagic mesocosms, we found that microplastics indirectly affect marine productivity by changing the bacterial and phytoplankton assemblages. Specifically, the addition of microplastics increased phytoplankton biomass and shifted bacterial assemblages' composition. Such changes altered the interactions between heterotrophic and autotrophic microbes and the cycling of ammonia in the water column, which ultimately benefited photosynthetic efficiency. The effects of microplastics on marine productivity were consistent for different microplastic types. This study demonstrates that microplastics affect bacteria and phytoplankton communities and influence marine productivity, which ultimately alters the functioning of the whole ocean ecosystem.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2023View details →

Structural and functional effects of global invasion pressure on benthic marine communities – patterns, challenges and priorities

Here we present datasets underlying the results of the study examining patterns of structural and functional community-level change in a range of well-studied marine ecosystems with documented histories of bioinvasion. For the purpose of the study, the authors identified six regions with extensive bay-scale datasets on native and non-indigenous benthic species assemblages, allowing paired comparisons in time (years to decades; retrospective datasets) or space (high vs. low proximity to hotspots of NIS introductions within a region; cross-sectional datasets) representing differences in bioinvasion pressure (Table 1). These sites were: 1) coastal waters of British Columbia, Canada (BC); 2) San Francisco Bay, USA (SF); 3) Ilha Grande Bay, Brazil (BR); 4) North-Eastern Baltic Sea, Estonia (BS); 5) estuaries of New South Wales, Australia (AU) and 6) Waitematā Harbour, New Zealand (NZ). These six regions are generally at mid- to higher-latitudes, with one low-latitude site (BR). The study sites encompassed surveys of benthic communities: fouling assemblages (BC and AU), subtidal reefs (BR and BS), and soft-sediment benthos (SF, BS, and NZ). Three data files are provided for each study region and include: <ul> <li>benthic community data (XX_species.csv)</li> <li>binary (0/1) biological trait information compiled for all species in the dataset (XX_traits.csv)</li> <li>additional explanatory variables considered for each study region - bioinvasion pressure and spatial variables (XX_env.csv)</li> </ul> For detailed information on datasets and methods description please refer to the original manuscript by Zaiko et al.