12 documents found, page 1 of 2
Editorial: Opening the black box of kelps: Response of early life stages to ant...
Martins, Neusa; Coleman, Melinda A.; Wernberg, Thomas; Roleda, Michael Y.Kelps form marine forests along world’s coastlines, providing valuable ecosystem goods and services, either directly as a source offood or medicinal products, or indirectly as biogenic habitats or carbon sink agents (Teagle et al., 2017; Wernberg et al., 2019). However, kelp forests are currently under threat due to anthropogenic climate change with latitudinal range shifts and large-scale declines at a global ...
Marine biodiversity exposed to prolonged and intense subsurface heatwaves
Fragkopoulou, Eliza; Sen Gupta, Alex; Costello, Mark John; Wernberg, Thomas; Araújo, Miguel B.; Serrao, Ester; De Clerck, Olivier; Assis, JorgeMarine heatwaves (MHWs) are becoming increasingly common, with devastating ecosystem impacts. However, MHW understanding has almost exclusively relied on sea surface temperature with limited knowledge about their subsurface characteristics. Here we estimate global MHWs from the surface to 2,000 m depth, covering the period 1993-2019, and explore biodiversity exposure to their effects. We find that MHWs are typi...
Kelp carbon sink potential decreases with warming due to accelerating decomposi...
Filbee-Dexter, Karen; Feehan, Colette J.; Smale, Dan A.; Krumhansi, Kira A.; Augustine, Skye; De Bettignies, Florian; Burrows, Michael T.Cycling of organic carbon in the ocean has the potential to mitigate or exacerbate global climate change, but major questions remain about the environmental controls on organic carbon flux in the coastal zone. Here, we used a field experiment distributed across 28° of latitude, and the entire range of 2 dominant kelp species in the northern hemisphere, to measure decomposition rates of kelp detritus on the seaf...
Global seaweed productivity
Pessarrodona, Albert; Assis, Jorge; Filbee-Dexter, Karen; Burrows, Michael T.; Gattuso, Jean-Pierre; Duarte, Carlos M.; Krause-Jensen, DorteThe magnitude and distribution of net primary production (NPP) in the coastal ocean remains poorly constrained, particularly for shallow marine vegetation. Here, using a compilation of in situ annual NPP measurements across >400 sites in 72 geographic ecoregions, we provide global predictions of the productivity of seaweed habitats, which form the largest vegetated coastal biome on the planet. We find that seaw...
Global estimates of the extent and production of macroalgal forests
Duarte, Carlos M.; Gattuso, Jean‐Pierre; Hancke, Kasper; Gundersen, Hege; Filbee‐Dexter, Karen; Pedersen, Morten F.; Middelburg, Jack J.Aim Macroalgal habitats are believed to be the most extensive and productive of all coastal vegetated ecosystems. In stark contrast to the growing attention on their contribution to carbon export and sequestration, understanding of their global extent and production is limited and these have remained poorly assessed for decades. Here we report a first data-driven assessment of the global extent and production o...
Local flexibility in feeding behaviour and contrasting microhabitat use of an o...
Leclerc, Jean-Charles; Bettignies, Thibaut de; Bettignies, Florian de; Christie, Hartvig; Franco, João N.; Leroux, Cédric; Davoult, DominiqueAs the environment is getting warmer and species are redistributed, consumers can be forced to adjust their interactions with available prey, and this could have cascading effects within food webs. To better understand the capacity for foraging flexibility, our study aimed to determine the diet variability of an ectotherm omnivore inhabiting kelp forests, the sea urchin Echinus esculentus, along its entire lati...
Leveraging the blue economy to transform marine forest restoration
Filbee-Dexter, Karen; Wernberg, Thomas; Barreiro, Rodolfo; Coleman, Melinda A.; Bettignies, Thibaut de; Feehan, Colette J.; Franco, Joao N.The UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration is a response to the urgent need to substantially accelerate and upscale ecological restoration to secure Earth’s sustainable future. Globally, restoration commitments have focused overwhelmingly on terrestrial forests. In contrast, despite a strong value proposition, efforts to restore seaweed forests lag far behind other major ecosystems and continue to be dominated by s...
Niche and neutral assembly mechanisms contribute to latitudinal diversity gradi...
Bosch, Nestor E.; Wernberg, Thomas; Langlois, Tim J.; Smale, Dan A.; Moore, Pippa J.; Franco, João N.; Thiriet, Pierre; Feunteun, Eric; Ribeiro, CláudiaAim: The influence of niche and neutral mechanisms on the assembly of ecological communities have long been debated. However, we still have a limited knowledge on their relative importance to explain patterns of diversity across latitudinal gradients (LDG). Here, we investigate the extent to which these ecological mechanisms contribute to the LDG of reef fishes. Location: Eastern Atlantic Ocean. Taxon: Reef-ass...
Toward a coordinated global observing system for seagrasses and marine macroalgae
Duffy, J. Emmett; Benedetti-Cecchi, Lisandro; Trinanes, Joaquin; Muller-Karger, Frank E.; Ambo-Rappe, Rohani; Boström, ChristofferIn coastal waters around the world, the dominant primary producers are benthic macrophytes, including seagrasses and macroalgae, that provide habitat structure and food for diverse and abundant biological communities and drive ecosystem processes. Seagrass meadows and macroalgal forests play key roles for coastal societies, contributing to fishery yields, storm protection, biogeochemical cycling and storage, an...
Modulation of different kelp life stages by herbivory: compensatory growth vers...
Franco, Joao N; Wernberg, Thomas; Bertocci, Iacopo; Jacinto, David; Maranhão, Paulo; Pereira, Tânia; Martinez, Brezo; Arenas; FranciscoPartitioning the efects of herbivory on diferent life stages of primary producers is key to understanding the population-wide consequences of herbivory. We assessed the performance of microscopic (MiS <1 mm) juveniles, macroscopic (MaS) juveniles and adult kelp (Laminaria ochroleuca) under contrasting herbivory regimes through a herbivore exclusion feld experiment. The abundance of MiS and the survival of MaS d...