Scientific publication
Tolerance to low oxygen conditions is greater in smaller than larger, and less mobile than mobile taxa. The most vulnerable taxa are large active fish, and the least include mussels, hydrozoans, and jellyfishes.
Credits: Dorothea Oldani on unsplash
In recent decades, the ocean is becoming less oxygenated due to the combined effect of global warming and the spread of coastal eutrophication, with extensive consequences to marine ecosystems. Past mass extinctions were at least in part due to anoxic conditions in the oceans. Thus, we should be concerned about ongoing and projected declining availability of well-oxygenated habitats in the oceans.
We show that tolerance to low oxygen is greater in smaller than larger, and less mobile than mobile taxa. The most vulnerable taxa to low oxygen are large active fish, and the least include mussels, hydrozoans, and jellyfishes. Climate change is thus likely to causes shifts in the relative abundance of species due to oxygen constraints.
Shi, Z., Assis, J., and Costello, M.J. (2021). Vulnerability of Marine Species to Low Oxygen Under Climate Change in Elsevier.
Seaweed productivity is strongly related to climatic variables, peaking at temperate latitudes and exhibiting exceptionally high per-area production rates, 10 times higher than coastal phytoplankton in temperate and polar seas.
Future expansions of marine forests in response to changing climate will likely elicit major changes in biodiversity and ecosystem functions of the Arctic.
Stacked species distribution modelling identifies regions of high and low species richness and endemicity of marine forests of brown algae globally.
Biophysical modelling revealed that connectivity differs sharply among ecological groups, from highly connected (e.g., fish) to isolated ecosystem structuring species (e.g., corals) that might undermine conservation efforts, as they are the feeding or nursery habitats of many other species.