Harnessing marine microclimates for climate change adaptation and marine conservation

Abstract

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.

Extreme Marine Heatwaves Alter Kelp Forest Community Near Its Equatorward Distribution Limit

“…The three islands have similar mean SSTs, suggesting similar thermal safety margins, however, SSTAs and the maximum intensities registered during the MHWs were slightly higher at the southernmost sites than at ITS, which could explain the different latitudinal responses of the kelp forest to the extreme warming. However, it is also true that the differences in the anomalies were very small (∼0.2 • C) between islands and other factors such as local seascape complexity, which might create "microclimates" (Woodson et al, 2018;Pinsky et al, 2019), could also contribute to the observed differences. Previous studies found that deeper sites represented local refugia and individuals living there could find and survive strong warming events such as El Niño, possibly serving as a source of spores and recruits to colonized shallower rocky areas (Ladah et al, 1999).…”

“…It is particularly valuable to monitor such species when located in sentinel areas for climate change, that is regions such as Baja California, where ocean surface temperatures have changed rapidly, and are projected to continue to do so (Hobday and Pecl, 2014). Despite the sensitivity of Baja California's kelp forest to warming events (Hernández Carmona, 1988;Ladah et al, 1999;Hernandez-Carmona et al, 2001;Edwards, 2004;Edwards and Hernandez-Carmona, 2005;Edwards and Estes, 2006;Torres-Moye et al, 2013;Beas-Luna and Ladah, 2014;Woodson et al, 2018), they have received far less attention than those further north (Ramírez-Valdez et al, 2017). Moreover, given the relevance of kelp forests near the southern end of their distributional range, understanding changes associated with an extreme environmental event might provide insights into how climate change will alter kelp forest ecosystems in the CCS.…”

An interdisciplinary evaluation of community-based TURF-reserves

“…Finally, extreme conditions, including prolonged hypoxia, heat waves, and storms have affected both the Pacific and Caribbean regions, with large negative impacts on coastal marine species and ecosystems [63][64][65]. The coastal ecosystems where these reserves are located have been profoundly affected by these events [15,66]. Effects of protection might be eliminated by the mortalities associated with these extreme conditions.…”

Global environmental changes negatively impact temperate seagrass ecosystems

“…Though healthy ecosystems tend to have a natural resilience to acute stress and species have a natural degree of adaptability to climate factors (Woodson et al. ), resilience is lost as problems become more chronic (Lake ). Such compromised ecosystems are likely to cross a threshold of resilience and shift to a non‐recoverable state (Loreau et al.…”

“…Understanding the compounding problems created by multiple factors applied to species and ecosystems is a critical step in the process of mitigating negative impacts given that multiple factors can act in a complex non-linear interactive way (Coelho et al 2013, Salo and Pedersen 2014, Halpern et al 2015. Though healthy ecosystems tend to have a natural resilience to acute stress and species have a natural degree of adaptability to climate factors (Woodson et al 2019), resilience is lost as problems become more chronic (Lake 2013). Such compromised ecosystems are likely to cross a threshold of resilience and shift to a non-recoverable state (Loreau et al 2001, Lundberg andMoberg 2003) if research and management do not work to understand, reduce, and eliminate the stresses and threats to the oceans.…”