Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrum

Climate change is a complex global issue that is driving countless shifts in the structure and function of marine ecosystems. To better understand these shifts, many processes need to be considered, yet they are often approached from incompatible perspectives. This article reviews one relatively sim...

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Autores: Heneghan, Ryan|||0000-0001-7626-1248, Hatton, Ian|||0000-0003-1191-2745, Galbraith, Eric D.|||0000-0003-4476-4232
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:205288
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/205288
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1042/ETLS20190042
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Climate change
Ecosystem measures
Marine ecosystem
Metabolism
Primary production
Size spectrum
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spelling Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrumHeneghan, Ryan|||0000-0001-7626-1248Hatton, Ian|||0000-0003-1191-2745Galbraith, Eric D.|||0000-0003-4476-4232Climate changeEcosystem measuresMarine ecosystemMetabolismPrimary productionSize spectrumClimate change is a complex global issue that is driving countless shifts in the structure and function of marine ecosystems. To better understand these shifts, many processes need to be considered, yet they are often approached from incompatible perspectives. This article reviews one relatively simple, integrated perspective: the abundance-size spectrum. We introduce the topic with a brief review of some of the ways climate change is expected to impact the marine ecosystem according to complex numerical models while acknowledging the limits to understanding posed by complex models. We then review how the size spectrum offers a simple conceptual alternative, given its regular power law size-frequency distribution when viewed on sufficiently broad scales. We further explore how anticipated physical aspects of climate change might manifest themselves through changes in the elevation, slope and regularity of the size spectrum, exposing mechanistic questions about integrated ecosystem structure, as well as how organism physiology and ecological interactions respond to multiple climatic stressors. Despite its application by ecosystem modellers and fisheries scientists, the size spectrum perspective is not widely used as a tool for monitoring ecosystem adaptation to climate change, providing a major opportunity for further research. Given the millions of species living in the global ocean, their diverse life strategies and inter-relationships, and the multiple dimensions of anthropogenic stressors, it can be extremely challenging to grasp the overall impact of climate change on marine ecosystems. In spite of this great complexity, observations have shown that ecosystem size structures tend to be highly regular, with many small and few large individuals, decreasing in abundance with size according to a simple power law distribution. This simple power law relationship is known as the abundance-size spectrum. The size spectrum encompasses all species and has long been known to be among the most robust large-scale regularities in aquatic ecology. As such, it provides a unique lens through which to integrate biotic changes from multiple aspects of climatic change. Below, we review the physical, biogeochemical and ecological impacts projected by complex numerical models for the remainder of this century, as an illustration of current expectations. We then turn to the size spectrum as a more intuitive, readily grasped framework that provides a bird's eye view of the ecosystem and helps to simplify the expectations, as well as revealing shortfalls in mechanistic understanding. 22019-01-0120192019-01-01Articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501VoRhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttps://ddd.uab.cat/record/205288https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1042/ETLS20190042reponame:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UABinstname:Universitat Autònoma de BarcelonaInglésengEuropean Commission https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000780 682602Agencia Estatal de Investigación https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033 PCIN-2017-115Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003329 MDM-2015-0552open accesshttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:ddd.uab.cat:2052882026-06-06T12:50:31Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrum
title Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrum
spellingShingle Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrum
Heneghan, Ryan|||0000-0001-7626-1248
Climate change
Ecosystem measures
Marine ecosystem
Metabolism
Primary production
Size spectrum
title_short Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrum
title_full Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrum
title_fullStr Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrum
title_full_unstemmed Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrum
title_sort Climate change impacts on marine ecosystems through the lens of the size spectrum
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Heneghan, Ryan|||0000-0001-7626-1248
Hatton, Ian|||0000-0003-1191-2745
Galbraith, Eric D.|||0000-0003-4476-4232
author Heneghan, Ryan|||0000-0001-7626-1248
author_facet Heneghan, Ryan|||0000-0001-7626-1248
Hatton, Ian|||0000-0003-1191-2745
Galbraith, Eric D.|||0000-0003-4476-4232
author_role author
author2 Hatton, Ian|||0000-0003-1191-2745
Galbraith, Eric D.|||0000-0003-4476-4232
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Climate change
Ecosystem measures
Marine ecosystem
Metabolism
Primary production
Size spectrum
topic Climate change
Ecosystem measures
Marine ecosystem
Metabolism
Primary production
Size spectrum
description Climate change is a complex global issue that is driving countless shifts in the structure and function of marine ecosystems. To better understand these shifts, many processes need to be considered, yet they are often approached from incompatible perspectives. This article reviews one relatively simple, integrated perspective: the abundance-size spectrum. We introduce the topic with a brief review of some of the ways climate change is expected to impact the marine ecosystem according to complex numerical models while acknowledging the limits to understanding posed by complex models. We then review how the size spectrum offers a simple conceptual alternative, given its regular power law size-frequency distribution when viewed on sufficiently broad scales. We further explore how anticipated physical aspects of climate change might manifest themselves through changes in the elevation, slope and regularity of the size spectrum, exposing mechanistic questions about integrated ecosystem structure, as well as how organism physiology and ecological interactions respond to multiple climatic stressors. Despite its application by ecosystem modellers and fisheries scientists, the size spectrum perspective is not widely used as a tool for monitoring ecosystem adaptation to climate change, providing a major opportunity for further research. Given the millions of species living in the global ocean, their diverse life strategies and inter-relationships, and the multiple dimensions of anthropogenic stressors, it can be extremely challenging to grasp the overall impact of climate change on marine ecosystems. In spite of this great complexity, observations have shown that ecosystem size structures tend to be highly regular, with many small and few large individuals, decreasing in abundance with size according to a simple power law distribution. This simple power law relationship is known as the abundance-size spectrum. The size spectrum encompasses all species and has long been known to be among the most robust large-scale regularities in aquatic ecology. As such, it provides a unique lens through which to integrate biotic changes from multiple aspects of climatic change. Below, we review the physical, biogeochemical and ecological impacts projected by complex numerical models for the remainder of this century, as an illustration of current expectations. We then turn to the size spectrum as a more intuitive, readily grasped framework that provides a bird's eye view of the ecosystem and helps to simplify the expectations, as well as revealing shortfalls in mechanistic understanding.
publishDate 2019
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2
2019-01-01
2019
2019-01-01
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv Article
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
VoR
http://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85
dc.type.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
format article
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://ddd.uab.cat/record/205288
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1042/ETLS20190042
url https://ddd.uab.cat/record/205288
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1042/ETLS20190042
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
eng
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
language eng
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv European Commission https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000780 682602
Agencia Estatal de Investigación https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033 PCIN-2017-115
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003329 MDM-2015-0552
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.rights.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
instname:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
instname_str Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
reponame_str Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
collection Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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