Temperature-related biodiversity change across temperate marine and terrestrial systems

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Climate change is reshaping global biodiversity as species respond to changing temperatures. However, the net effects of climate-driven species redistribution on local assemblage diversity remain unknown. Here, we relate trends in species richness and abundance from 21,500 terrestrial and marine assemblage time series across temperate regions (23.5-60.0°) to changes in air or sea surface temperature. We find a strong coupling between biodiversity and temperature changes in the marine realm, which is conditional on the baseline climate. We detect increases in species richness with increasing temperature that is twice as pronounced in warmer locations, while abundance declines with warming in the warmest marine locations. In contrast, we did not detect systematic temperature-related richness or abundance trends on land, despite a greater magnitude of warming. We also found no evidence for an interaction between biodiversity change and latitude, further emphasizing the importance of baseline climate in structuring assemblages. As the world is committed to further warming, significant challenges remain in maintaining local biodiversity amongst the non-uniform inflow and outflow of “climate migrants” across distinct regions, especially in the ocean.</jats:p>

Contrasting latitudinal patterns in diversity and stability in a high‐latitude species‐rich moth community

“…Specifically, declines in insect abundance (regardless of their causes) appearto drive declines in bird population trends, with pronounced effects on insectivores and long-distance migrant species(Bowler, Heldbjerg, Fox, Jong, & Böhning-Gaese, 2019;Hallmann, Foppen, Turnhout, Kroon, & Jongejans, 2014).Our results highlight that changes in richness and abundance can be decoupled from each other(Schipper et al, 2016). In a similar vein,Antão et al (2019) reported how temperature-related trends in the number of individuals and number of species were not only decoupled, but exhibited geographically contrasting patterns during several decades of climate change. Such contrasting trends between richness and abundance might be explained by the ability of species to exploit microrefugia(Suggitt et al, 2018), allowing populations to persist in smaller pockets of suitable climate in the face of en-…”

“…Our results highlight that changes in richness and abundance can be decoupled from each other (Schipper et al, ). In a similar vein, Antão et al () reported how temperature‐related trends in the number of individuals and number of species were not only decoupled, but exhibited geographically contrasting patterns during several decades of climate change. Such contrasting trends between richness and abundance might be explained by the ability of species to exploit microrefugia (Suggitt et al, ), allowing populations to persist in smaller pockets of suitable climate in the face of environmental changes (Aalto, Riihimäki, Meineri, Hylander, & Luoto, ; Greiser, Meineri, Luoto, Ehrlén, & Hylander, ; Maclean, Suggitt, Wilson, Duffy, & Bennie, ; Meineri & Hylander, ).…”

Recent increases in assemblage rarity are linked to increasing local immigration

“…Like all ecosystems on the planet, these assemblages are impacted by combinations of global stressors [ 17 ]. Specifically, BioTIME time series are affected by the ubiquitous climate change [ 18 ], marine data include locations affected by overfishing [ 19 ], and most of the range in forest loss found across the planet is covered by BioTIME [ 20 ]. The widespread compositional change detected within BioTIME assemblages is indicative of change captured by these data [ 21 ].…”

Field testing of biohybrid robotic jellyfish to demonstrate enhanced swimming speeds

“…With ocean acidification altering animal behavior and function [1,2] and temperatureinduced biodiversity changes in marine environments [3,4], new tools can expand efforts to track markers of climate change in more sensitive or previously unexplored areas of the ocean [5].…”