Developing integrated models of Southern Ocean food webs: Including ecological complexity, accounting for uncertainty and the importance of scale

Murphy, Eugene J.; Cavanagh, Rachel D.; Hofmann, Eileen E.; Hill, Simeon L.; Constable, Andrew J.; Costa, Daniel P.; Pinkerton, Matthew H.; Johnston, Nadine M.; Trathan, Philip N.; Klinck, John M.; Wolf-Gladrow, Dieter; Daly, Kendra L.; Maury, Olivier; Doney, Scott C.

doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2012.03.006

Cited by 81 publications

(110 citation statements)

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“…Efforts to incorporate biology into physical models tend to include only components of the lower levels (e.g., phytoplankton) (Murphy et al, 2012). However, physical changes can affect all trophic levels.…”

Section: Key Challenges and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To capture some of the consequences of using models that poorly represent sea ice here we present a simplified view of some of its key effects in a Southern Ocean pelagic food web (for examples of detailed Southern Ocean food webs see, e.g., Ducklow et al, 2007;Murphy et al, 2007Murphy et al, , 2012Murphy et al, , 2013Smith et al, 2007). Consider a model(s) that has sea ice melting a month early or a month late.…”

Section: Key Challenges and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ecologists are increasingly being asked to provide advice in this regard to support conservation and management decisions (Hollowed et al, 2013;Barange et al, 2014;García Molinos et al, 2015). Understanding and predicting these effects requires knowledge of the processes that determine the distribution and abundance of species, the structure and functioning of ecosystems within which they occur, and their past and present dynamics (Southward et al, 1995;Mieszkowska et al, 2006;Lima et al, 2007;Doney et al, 2012;Murphy et al, 2012). This is coupled with the need to understand the key physical drivers of change and for reliable projections of them.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Quantitative assessments are more difficult. Relevant biological data are often patchy or imprecisely known, while effects are often indirect and multifaceted (Bednarek et al, 2011;Murphy et al, 2012;Melbourne-Thomas et al, 2013;Gutt et al, 2015). This makes the challenges of assessing future change even greater (Hill et al, 2013;Kawaguchi et al, 2013;Melbourne-Thomas et al, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

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A Synergistic Approach for Evaluating Climate Model Output for Ecological Applications

et al. 2017

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Increasing concern about the impacts of climate change on ecosystems is prompting ecologists and ecosystem managers to seek reliable projections of physical drivers of change. The use of global climate models in ecology is growing, although drawing ecologically meaningful conclusions can be problematic. The expertise required to access and interpret output from climate and earth system models is hampering progress in utilizing them most effectively to determine the wider implications of climate change. To address this issue, we present a joint approach between climate scientists and ecologists that explores key challenges and opportunities for progress. As an exemplar, our focus is the Southern Ocean, notable for significant change with global implications, and on sea ice, given its crucial role in this dynamic ecosystem. We combined perspectives to evaluate the representation of sea ice in global climate models. With an emphasis on ecologically-relevant criteria (sea ice extent and seasonality) we selected a subset of eight models that reliably reproduce extant sea ice distributions. While the model subset shows a similar mean change to the full ensemble in sea ice extent (approximately 50% decline in winter and 30% decline in summer), there is a marked reduction in the range. This improved the precision of projected future sea ice distributions by approximately one third, and means they are more amenable to ecological interpretation. We conclude that careful multidisciplinary evaluation of climate models, in conjunction with ongoing modeling advances, should form an integral part of utilizing model output.

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Section: Key Challenges and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Key Challenges and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Synergistic Approach for Evaluating Climate Model Output for Ecological Applications

et al. 2017

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“…The food fluxes and their relations to oceanography are still not understood, but an extensive model in order to understand the structure and function of the food webs at multiple scales were developed by Murphy et al (2012). The objective of the project SYSTCO II (SYSten COupling in the deep Southern Ocean II) was to investigate aspects of pelago-benthic coupling between 501S and 601S.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Algal pigments in Southern Ocean abyssal foraminiferans indicate pelagobenthic coupling

Cedhagen

Cheah

Bracher

et al. 2014

Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography

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a b s t r a c tThe cytoplasm of four species of abyssal benthic foraminiferans from the Southern Ocean (around 511S; 121W and 501S; 391W) was analysed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and found to contain large concentrations of algal pigments and their degradation products. The composition of the algal pigments in the foraminiferan cytoplasm reflected the plankton community at the surface. Some foraminiferans contained high ratios of chlorophyll a/degraded pigments because they were feeding on fresher phytodetritus. Other foraminiferans contained only degraded pigments which shows that they utilized degraded phytodetritus. The concentration of algal pigment and corresponding degradation products in the foraminiferan cytoplasm is much higher than in the surrounding sediment. It shows that the foraminiferans collect a diluted and sparse food resource and concentrate it as they build up their cytoplasm. This ability contributes to the understanding of the great quantitative success of foraminiferans in the deep sea. Benthic foraminiferans are a food source for many abyssal metazoans. They form a link between the degraded food resources, phytodetritus, back to the active metazoan food chains.

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Trophodynamics of Southern Ocean pteropods on the southern Kerguelen Plateau

Weldrick

Trebilco

Davies

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Pteropods are a group of small marine gastropods that are highly sensitive to multiple stressors associated with climate change. Their trophic ecology is not well studied, with most research having focused primarily on the effects of ocean acidification on their fragile, aragonite shells. Stable isotopes analysis coupled with isotope‐based Bayesian niche metrics is useful for characterizing the trophic structure of biological assemblages. These approaches have not been implemented for pteropod assemblages. We used isotope‐based Bayesian niche metrics to investigate the trophic relationships of three co‐occurring pteropod species, with distinct feeding behaviors, sampled from the Southern Kerguelen Plateau area in the Indian Sector of the Southern Ocean—a biologically and economically important but poorly studied region. Two of these species were gymnosomes (shell‐less pteropods), which are traditionally regarded as specialist predators on other pteropods, and the third species was a thecosome (shelled pteropod), which are typically generalist omnivores. For each species, we aimed to understand (a) variability and overlap among isotopic niches; and (b) whether there was a relationship between body size and trophic position. Observed isotopic niche areas were broadest for gymnosomes, especially Clione limacina antarctica , whose observed isotopic niche area was wider than expected on both δ 13 C and δ 15 N value axes. We also found that trophic position significantly increased with increasing body length for Spongiobranchaea australis . We found no indication of a dietary shift toward increased trophic position with increasing body size for Clio pyramidata f. sulcata . Trophic positions ranged from 2.8 to 3.5, revealing an assemblage composed of both primary and secondary consumer behaviors. This study provides a comprehensive comparative analysis on trophodynamics in Southern Ocean pteropod species, and supports previous studies using gut content, fatty acid and stable isotope analyses. Combined, our results illustrate differences in intraspecific trophic behavior that may be attributed to differential feeding strategies at species level.

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Developing integrated models of Southern Ocean food webs: Including ecological complexity, accounting for uncertainty and the importance of scale

Abstract: openAccessArticle: FalsePage Range: 74-74doi: 10.1016/j.pocean.2012.03.006Harvest Date: 2016-01-12 15:13:57issueName: End-to-End Modeling: Toward Comparative Analysis of Marine Ecosystem Organizationcover date: 2012-09-01pubType

Cited by 81 publications

References 173 publications

A Synergistic Approach for Evaluating Climate Model Output for Ecological Applications

A Synergistic Approach for Evaluating Climate Model Output for Ecological Applications

Algal pigments in Southern Ocean abyssal foraminiferans indicate pelagobenthic coupling

Trophodynamics of Southern Ocean pteropods on the southern Kerguelen Plateau

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