A regime shift in intertidal assemblages triggered by loss of algal canopies: A multidecadal survey
Canopy-forming macroalgae recently experienced a worldwide decline. This is relevant, because canopies sustain complex food webs in temperate coasts. We assessed the die-back of the canopy-forming alga Fucus serratus in N Spain, at its warm distributional range boundary, and its effects on associate...
| Autores: | , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2020 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad Rey Juan Carlos |
| Repositorio: | BURJC-Digital. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:burjcdigital.urjc.es:10115/41047 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10115/41047 |
| Access Level: | acceso embargado |
| Palabra clave: | Marine ecology Coastal zone Canopy-forming algae Fucus serratus Climate change Species distributions Turf-forming algae Community composition Regime shifts |
| Sumario: | Canopy-forming macroalgae recently experienced a worldwide decline. This is relevant, because canopies sustain complex food webs in temperate coasts. We assessed the die-back of the canopy-forming alga Fucus serratus in N Spain, at its warm distributional range boundary, and its effects on associated assemblages. We combined long-term descriptive surveys with canopy-removal experiments. Results showed that rapid shifts to turf-forming communities were mostly the direct consequence of the canopy loss, rather than a concurrent process directly triggered by climate change. The switch alters the whole food web, as the prominent role of F.serratus and other cold-temperate intertidal fucoids is not being replaced by functionally equivalent species. Canopy loss caused a rapid biotic homogenization at regional scale which is spreading towards the west, from the edge to the central part of the former distributional range of F.serratus in N Spain. The most obvious effect is the ecological and functional impoverishment of the coastal system. |
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