Antarctic ecosystems in transition – life between stresses and opportunities

Gutt, Julian; Isla, Enrique; Xavier, José C.; Adams, Byron J.; Ahn, In-Young; Cheng, C.‐H. Christina; Colesie, Claudia; Cummings, Vonda J.; Prisco, Guido di; Griffiths, Huw J.; Hawes, Ian; Hogg, Ian D.; McIntyre, Trevor; Meiners, Klaus M.; Pearce, David A.; Peck, Lloyd S.; Piepenburg, Dieter; Reisinger, Ryan R; Saba, Grace; Schloss, Irene R; Signori, Camila Negrão; Smith, Craig R.; Vacchi, Marino; Verde, Cinzia; Wall, Diana H.

doi:10.1111/brv.12679

Cited by 68 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 258 publications

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“…Discussion between researchers and policy makers is needed to determine appropriate scales to inform marine conservation and management of marine living resources (Kennicutt et al, 2014;Gutt et al, 2019). Not only should these models incorporate the relevant global and local drivers discussed here and other recent syntheses (see Gutt et al, 2020), but benthic models also need to represent fine-scale patchiness and broadscale differences in community composition, as well as regional connectivity (e.g., Thrush et al, 2006;Gutt et al, 2019;Robinson et al, 2020;see Weldrick et al to be published in this research topic).…”

Section: Knowledge Gaps and Projections Of Future Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of Southern Ocean Seafloor Habitats and Communities to Global and Local Drivers of Change

et al. 2021

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Knowledge of life on the Southern Ocean seafloor has substantially grown since the beginning of this century with increasing ship-based surveys and regular monitoring sites, new technologies and greatly enhanced data sharing. However, seafloor habitats and their communities exhibit high spatial variability and heterogeneity that challenges the way in which we assess the state of the Southern Ocean benthos on larger scales. The Antarctic shelf is rich in diversity compared with deeper water areas, important for storing carbon (“blue carbon”) and provides habitat for commercial fish species. In this paper, we focus on the seafloor habitats of the Antarctic shelf, which are vulnerable to drivers of change including increasing ocean temperatures, iceberg scour, sea ice melt, ocean acidification, fishing pressures, pollution and non-indigenous species. Some of the most vulnerable areas include the West Antarctic Peninsula, which is experiencing rapid regional warming and increased iceberg-scouring, subantarctic islands and tourist destinations where human activities and environmental conditions increase the potential for the establishment of non-indigenous species and active fishing areas around South Georgia, Heard and MacDonald Islands. Vulnerable species include those in areas of regional warming with low thermal tolerance, calcifying species susceptible to increasing ocean acidity as well as slow-growing habitat-forming species that can be damaged by fishing gears e.g., sponges, bryozoan, and coral species. Management regimes can protect seafloor habitats and key species from fishing activities; some areas will need more protection than others, accounting for specific traits that make species vulnerable, slow growing and long-lived species, restricted locations with optimum physiological conditions and available food, and restricted distributions of rare species. Ecosystem-based management practices and long-term, highly protected areas may be the most effective tools in the preservation of vulnerable seafloor habitats. Here, we focus on outlining seafloor responses to drivers of change observed to date and projections for the future. We discuss the need for action to preserve seafloor habitats under climate change, fishing pressures and other anthropogenic impacts.

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Section: Knowledge Gaps and Projections Of Future Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of Southern Ocean Seafloor Habitats and Communities to Global and Local Drivers of Change

et al. 2021

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“…Climate change is considered the greatest anthropogenic threat to Antarctic ecosystems (Gutt et al, 2020). Antarctica and its biota are highly sensitive to environmental changes, due in part to the biota's narrow tolerance range to a number of environmental features (e.g., temperature; Peck, 2005;Pörtner et al, 2007;Peck et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ross Sea Benthic Ecosystems: Macro- and Mega-faunal Community Patterns From a Multi-environment Survey

et al. 2021

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The Ross Sea, Antarctica, is amongst the least human-impacted marine environments, and the site of the world’s largest Marine Protected Area. We present research on two components of the Ross Sea benthic fauna: mega-epifauna, and macro-infauna, sampled using video and multicore, respectively, on the continental shelf and in previously unsampled habitats on the northern continental slope and abyssal plain. We describe physical habitat characteristics and community composition, in terms of faunal diversity, abundance, and functional traits, and compare similarities within and between habitats. We also examine relationships between faunal distributions and ice cover and productivity, using summaries of satellite-derived data over the decade prior to our sampling. Clear differences in seafloor characteristics and communities were noted between environments. Seafloor substrates were more diverse on the Slope and Abyss, while taxa were generally more diverse on the Shelf. Mega-epifauna were predominantly suspension feeders across the Shelf and Slope, with deposit feeder-grazers found in higher or equal abundances in the Abyss. In contrast, suspension feeders were the least common macro-infaunal feeding type on the Shelf and Slope. Concordance between the mega-epifauna and macro-infauna data suggests that non-destructive video sampling of mega-epifauna can be used to indicate likely composition of macro-infauna, at larger spatial scales, at least. Primary productivity, seabed organic flux, and sea ice concentrations, and their variability over time, were important structuring factors for both community types. This illustrates the importance of better understanding bentho-pelagic coupling and incorporating this in biogeographic and process-distribution models, to enable meaningful predictions of how these ecosystems may be impacted by projected environmental changes. This study has enhanced our understanding of the distributions and functions of seabed habitats and fauna inside and outside the Ross Sea MPA boundaries, expanding the baseline dataset against which the success of the MPA, as well as variability and change in benthic communities can be evaluated longer term.

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“…Antarctica is a special case as it remains protected from many direct human impacts by its isolation but is on the forefront of climate-change-driven disturbance, which cannot be mediated by simple measures (Kennicutt et al, 2019;Turner & Comiso, 2017;United Nations, 1959). As such, it is home to some of the least impacted ecosystems-many of which, for example, sub-ice-shelf ecosystems, are already being exposed to open water under the influence of climate warming (Gutt et al, 2020;Ingels et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Turner & Comiso, 2017). The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) has experienced the most severe consequences of this physical change (Gutt et al, 2020;Rogers et al, 2020). These range from increased air and sea temperature and break up of ice shelves to decreases in annual winter sea-ice duration and accelerated glacial retreat.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Antarctica's shallow zoobenthos ‘bounce back’ from iceberg scouring impacts driven by climate change?

Zwerschke

Morley

Peck

et al. 2021

Global Change Biology

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Antarctic ecosystems in transition – life between stresses and opportunities

Cited by 68 publications

References 258 publications

Responses of Southern Ocean Seafloor Habitats and Communities to Global and Local Drivers of Change

Responses of Southern Ocean Seafloor Habitats and Communities to Global and Local Drivers of Change

Ross Sea Benthic Ecosystems: Macro- and Mega-faunal Community Patterns From a Multi-environment Survey

Can Antarctica's shallow zoobenthos ‘bounce back’ from iceberg scouring impacts driven by climate change?

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