Main Points
‐Responses to climate change and large‐scale forcing can vary widely at local scales creating marine microclimates.
‐Microclimates are robust even under extreme large‐scale forcing events (ENSO, climate change) potentially creating spatial refuges or ‘safe spaces’ for important species.
‐Small/medium no‐take zones, artificial reefs, and other possible spatial management can be placed to harness local variability as an adaptation or conservation measure in the face of climate change.
Climate change is causing warming, deoxygenation, and acidification of the global ocean. However, manifestation of climate change may vary at local scales due to oceanographic conditions. Variation in stressors, such as high temperature and low oxygen, at local scales may lead to variable biological responses and spatial refuges from climate impacts. We conducted outplant experiments at two locations separated by ~2.5 km and two sites at each location separated by ~200 m in the nearshore of Isla Natividad, Mexico to assess how local ocean conditions (warming and hypoxia) may affect juvenile abalone performance. Here, we show that abalone growth and mortality mapped to variability in stress exposure across sites and locations. These insights indicate that management decisions aimed at maintaining and recovering valuable marine species in the face of climate change need to be informed by local variability in environmental conditions.
As part of a project focused on the coastal fisheries of Isla Natividad, an island on the Pacific coast of Baja California, Mexico, we conducted a 2‐1/2 year study of flows at two sites within the island's kelp forests. At one site (Punta Prieta), currents are tidal, whereas at the other site (Morro Prieto), currents are weaker and may be more strongly influenced by wind forcing. Satellite estimates of the biomass of the giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) for this period varied between 0 (no kelp) and 3 kg/m2 (dense kelp forest), including a period in which kelp entirely was absent as a result of the 2014–2015 “Warm Blob” in the Eastern Pacific. During this natural “deforestation experiment”, alongshore velocities at both sites when kelp was present were substantially weaker than when kelp was absent, with low‐frequency alongshore currents attenuated more than higher frequency ones, behavior that was the same at both sites despite differences in forcing. The attenuation of cross‐shore flows by kelp was less than alongshore flows; thus, residence times for water inside the kelp forest, which are primarily determined by cross‐shore velocities, were only weakly affected by the presence or absence of kelp. The flow changes we observed in response to changes in kelp density are important to the biogeochemical functioning of the kelp forest in that slower flows imply longer residence times, and, are also ecologically relevant in that reduced tidal excursions may lead to more localized recruitment of planktonic larvae.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.