Impacts of changing climate on the non-indigenous invertebrates in the northern Baltic Sea by end of the twenty-first century

Abstract

Biological invasions coupled with climate change drive changes in marine biodiversity. Warming climate and changes in hydrology may either enable or hinder the spread of non-indigenous species (NIS) and little is known about how climate change modifies the richness and impacts of NIS in specific sea areas. We calculated from climate change simulations (RCO-SCOBI model) the changes in summer time conditions which northern Baltic Sea may to go through by the end of the twenty-first century, e.g., 2-5°C sea surface temperature rise and even up to 1.75 unit decrease in salinity. We reviewed the temperature and salinity tolerances (i.e., physiological tolerances and occurrence ranges in the field) of pelagic and benthic NIS established in-or with dispersal potential to-the northern Baltic Sea, and assessed how climate change will likely affect them. Our findings suggest a future decrease in barnacle larvae and an increase in Ponto-Caspian cladocerans in the pelagic community. In benthos, polychaetes, gastropods and decapods may become less abundant. By contrast, dreissenid bivalves, amphipods and mysids are expected to widen their distribution and increase in abundance in the coastal areas of the northern Baltic Sea. Potential salinity decrease acts as a major driver for NIS biogeography in the northern Baltic Sea, but temperature increase and extended summer season allow higher reproduction success in bivalves, zooplankton, amphipods and mysids. Successful NIS, i.e., coastal crustacean and bivalve species, pose a risk to native biota, as many of them have already demonstrated harmful effects in the Baltic Sea.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

Small details of big importance: Carbon mass determination in the invasive cladoceran Cercopagis pengoi (Ostroumov, 1891) by the high temperature combustion method

“…This impact jointly with ecosystem vulnerability to invasions, food web structure and biodiversity are closely interrelated and tightly linked with the on-going environmental alterations (Vuorinen et al 2015, Holopainen et al 2016. New experimentally derived knowledge on carbon mass of the alien fishhook water flea C. pengoi will contribute to future development of methods for assessment of the ecosystem impacts of non-indigenous species and refining the invasibility criteria for successful species coexistence in the changing environment which might significantly enhance predictive ecology.…”

“…In invasion biology, ecosystems vulnerability to non-indigenous species introductions, biodiversity of native communities and competitive resource utilization depending on the size of organisms are pervasive and closely linked to environmental changes (Holopainen et al 2016). For the adequate food web structure evaluation and the appropriate energy balance calculations in aquatic ecosystems, determination of carbon mass of organisms as a biomass measure is an important prerequisite.…”

Environmental tolerance of three gammarid species with and without invasion record under current and future global warming scenarios

“…The wide temperature and salinity tolerance of the Ponto‐Caspian species P. maeoticus (results of this study, Figure ; Paiva et al., ), in addition to shipping and canal connectivity between Northern Europe and the Ponto‐Caspian region (Bij de Vaate, Jazdzewski, Ketelaars, Gollasch, & Van der Velde, ; Kaluza, Kölzsch, Gastner, & Blasius, ), imply that there is a potential that this species, as well as some others from the Ponto‐Caspian region invade the Baltic Sea under a future global warming scenario. Due to wide salinity and temperature tolerance, non‐ indigenous amphipods are predicted to become more widespread and abundant along the coasts of the northern Baltic Sea (Holopainen et al., ). Species originating from the Ponto‐Caspian region are generally known to be successful invaders in freshwater as well as marine environments (Casties et al., ; Ricciardi & MacIsaac, ).…”

“…Numerous regions worldwide are highly impacted by anthropogenic activities and globalization, with climate change and species introductions being among the greatest stressors to biodiversity and ecosystems (Capinha et al., ; IPCC, ; Sala et al., ). Changes in ecosystems open new opportunities for continually introduced species, which are often more resistant to multiple stressors than many native species in an area, and probably preadapted to anthropogenically impacted habitats (Holopainen et al., ; Hufbauer et al., ; IPCC, ). Non‐indigenous species often appear to occur with little impact on the recipient community and may even increase biodiversity in some regions (Zettler, ).…”

“…Some of those Ponto‐Caspian species, such as the zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha , the amphipod Echinogammarus ischnus and the round goby Neogobius melanostomus , can have high impact on local communities and ecosystem functioning (Charlebois, Corkum, Jude, & Knight, ; Dermott, Witt, Um, & González, ; Ojaveer et al., ; Ricciardi, Neves, & Rasmussen, ). Changes in species communities and environments may open new niche opportunities for continuously introduced species and might be enhanced by predicted future climate change (Holopainen et al., ; IPCC, ).…”