Spatial correlation reverses the compound effect of multiple stressors on rocky shore biofilm

Abstract

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A response-surface approach into the interactive effects of multiple stressors reveals new insights into complex responses

“…Yet, little of that work has, however, considered more than one or two concentrations/intensities of each stressor with research mainly having been performed in laboratory settings with only 10-20% of studies being undertaken in the field with natural-occurring assemblages (Crain et al, 2008;Mayer-Pinto et al, 2020). In addition, field experiments with the ability to test multiple pairwise comparisons have been rare (Coteé t al., 2016) despite calls for their implementation (Strain et al, 2014;Bennett et al, 2015;Lyons et al, 2015;Cotéet al, 2016;Orr et al, 2020;Rindi et al, 2022). This is predominantly because the large complex experiments required have been very difficult to run in the field.…”

“…If, however, the more harmful stressor is one that would be expected to occur under climatic change such as increased temperature, acidification, etc., it may not be possible to modify its effects (Harley et al, 2006;Russell et al, 2009;Cheng et al, 2015). These sorts of scenarios could be examined using a 'response-surface' design and provide useful information to managers and policymakers who wish to avoid harmful multiple stressor scenarios, something that has previously been called for in the literature (Kroeker et al, 2017;Varaksin et al, 2018), but remains rare (but see Rindi et al, 2022 for experimental approaches on biofilms) due to the complexity of the task and remains a knowledge-gap (Orr et al, 2020;Jackson et al, 2021).…”