Projected changes of Antarctic krill habitat by the end of the 21st century

Piñones, Andrea; Fedorov, Alexey V.

doi:10.1002/2016gl069656

Cited by 70 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(100 reference statements)

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“…Thus, there is considerable interest in projecting the impacts of climate change over the long term. For example, habitat models built from climate change projections indicate shifts in spatial habitat for krill by 2100 because of changing water temperature and primary production (Hill et al 2013), changes in larval production (Piñones & Fedorov 2016), impacts on larval survival as pH declines (Kawaguchi et al 2013), and changes in the distribution of sea ice and coincident larval habitat (Melbourne-Thomas et al 2016) emphasizing the importance of long-term effects. However, over the last 30 to 50 yr, climate-related changes in the primary atmospheric climate mode, the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), have strengthened the warm westerly winds and driven declines in sea-ice extent and duration around the Antarctic Peninsula (Stammerjohn et al 2008b, Yuan & Li.…”

Section: Climate and Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overwinter habitat selection by Antarctic krill under varying sea-ice conditions: implications for top predators and fishery management

Reiss¹,

Cossio²,

Santora³

et al. 2017

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Climate change will affect Antarctic krill Euphausia superba, krill-dependent predators, and fisheries in the Southern Ocean as areas typically covered by sea ice become ice-free in some winters. Research cruises conducted around the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula during winters with contrasting ice conditions provide the first acoustic estimates of krill biomass, habitat use, and association with top predators to examine potential interactions with the krill fishery. Krill abundance was very low in offshore waters during all winters. In Bransfield Strait, median krill abundance was an order of magnitude higher (8 krill m ), and this pattern was observed in all winters regardless of ice cover. Acoustic estimates of krill biomass were also an order of magnitude higher (~5 500 000 metric tons [t] in 2014) than a 15 yr summer average (520 000 t). Looking at krilldependent predators, during winter, crabeater seals Lobodon carcinophagus were concentrated in Bransfield Strait where ice provided habitat, while Antarctic fur seals Arctocephalus gazella were more broadly distributed. Krill overwinter in coastal basin environments independent of ice and primary production and in an area that is becoming more frequently icefree. While long-term projections of climate change have focused on changing krill habitat and productivity declines, more immediate impacts of ongoing climate change include increased risks of negative fishery−krill−predator interactions, alteration of upper trophic level community structure, and changes in the pelagic ecology of this system. Development of management strategies to mitigate the increased risk to krill populations and their dependent predators over management timescales will be necessary to minimize the impacts of long-term climate change.

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Section: Climate and Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overwinter habitat selection by Antarctic krill under varying sea-ice conditions: implications for top predators and fishery management

Reiss¹,

Cossio²,

Santora³

et al. 2017

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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“…This is coupled with the need to understand the key physical drivers of change and for reliable projections of them. As such, the use of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)-class climate models (Box 1) is rapidly gaining momentum in ecological studies of change (Hunter et al, 2010;Bopp et al, 2013;Jenouvrier et al, 2014;Piñones and Fedorov, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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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“…During our study, they reached mean values of 22 and 12 mg/m 3 at ice camp 1 and ice camp 2, respectively (Meyer et al, ). In a comprehensive model intercomparison, Piñones and Fedorov () assumed that pelagic production in the Southern Ocean would rather decline than increase towards the year 2,100. Even in studies predicting increases in pelagic production, the phytoplankton surplus is likely too low to compensate the corresponding loss of ice algae (Arrigo & Thomas, ; Boyd, Lennartz, Glover, & Doney, ; Vancoppenolle et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dependency of Antarctic zooplankton species on ice algae‐produced carbon suggests a sea ice‐driven pelagic ecosystem during winter

Kohlbach

Graeve

Lange

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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How the abundant pelagic life of the Southern Ocean survives winter darkness, when the sea is covered by pack ice and phytoplankton production is nearly zero, is poorly understood. Ice-associated ("sympagic") microalgae could serve as a high-quality carbon source during winter, but their significance in the food web is so far unquantified. To better understand the importance of ice algae-produced carbon for the overwintering of Antarctic organisms, we investigated fatty acid (FA) and stable isotope compositions of 10 zooplankton species, and their potential sympagic and pelagic carbon sources. FA-specific carbon stable isotope compositions were used in stable isotope mixing models to quantify the contribution of ice algae-produced carbon (α ) to the body carbon of each species. Mean α estimates ranged from 4% to 67%, with large variations between species and depending on the FA used for the modelling. Integrating the α estimates from all models, the sympagic amphipod Eusirus laticarpus was the most dependent on ice algal carbon (α : 54%-67%), and the salp Salpa thompsoni showed the least dependency on ice algal carbon (α : 8%-40%). Differences in α estimates between FAs associated with short-term vs. long-term lipid pools suggested an increasing importance of ice algal carbon for many species as the winter season progressed. In the abundant winter-active copepod Calanus propinquus, mean α reached more than 50% in late winter. The trophic carbon flux from ice algae into this copepod was between 3 and 5 mg C m day . This indicates that copepods and other ice-dependent zooplankton species transfer significant amounts of carbon from ice algae into the pelagic system, where it fuels the food web, the biological carbon pump and elemental cycling. Understanding the role of ice algae-produced carbon in these processes will be the key to predictions of the impact of future sea ice decline on Antarctic ecosystem functioning.

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Projected changes of Antarctic krill habitat by the end of the 21st century

Cited by 70 publications

References 53 publications

Overwinter habitat selection by Antarctic krill under varying sea-ice conditions: implications for top predators and fishery management

Overwinter habitat selection by Antarctic krill under varying sea-ice conditions: implications for top predators and fishery management

A Synergistic Approach for Evaluating Climate Model Output for Ecological Applications

Dependency of Antarctic zooplankton species on ice algae‐produced carbon suggests a sea ice‐driven pelagic ecosystem during winter

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