School of Biological Sciences, Swire Institute of Marine Science, and Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Polytechnic University of Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2016 May;91(2):275-87. doi: 10.1111/brv.12169. Epub 2014 Dec 18.
Temperature is considered to be a fundamental factor controlling biodiversity in marine ecosystems, but precisely what role temperature plays in modulating diversity is still not clear. The deep ocean, lacking light and in situ photosynthetic primary production, is an ideal model system to test the effects of temperature changes on biodiversity. Here we synthesize current knowledge on temperature-diversity relationships in the deep sea. Our results from both present and past deep-sea assemblages suggest that, when a wide range of deep-sea bottom-water temperatures is considered, a unimodal relationship exists between temperature and diversity (that may be right skewed). It is possible that temperature is important only when at relatively high and low levels but does not play a major role in the intermediate temperature range. Possible mechanisms explaining the temperature-biodiversity relationship include the physiological-tolerance hypothesis, the metabolic hypothesis, island biogeography theory, or some combination of these. The possible unimodal relationship discussed here may allow us to identify tipping points at which on-going global change and deep-water warming may increase or decrease deep-sea biodiversity. Predicted changes in deep-sea temperatures due to human-induced climate change may have more adverse consequences than expected considering the sensitivity of deep-sea ecosystems to temperature changes.
温度被认为是控制海洋生态系统生物多样性的一个基本因素，但温度在调节多样性方面究竟起着什么作用仍不清楚。深海缺乏光照和原地光合作用初级生产力，是测试温度变化对生物多样性影响的理想模式系统。在这里，我们综合了目前关于深海温度与多样性关系的知识。我们从当前和过去深海组合中得到的结果表明，当考虑广泛的深海底层水温时，温度与多样性之间存在单峰关系（可能右偏）。当温度处于相对较高和较低水平时，温度可能很重要，但在中间温度范围内不起主要作用。解释温度与生物多样性关系的可能机制包括生理耐受假说、代谢假说、岛屿生物地理学理论，或这些机制的某种组合。这里讨论的可能的单峰关系可能使我们能够确定临界点，在这些临界点上，正在进行的全球变化和深水变暖可能会增加或减少深海生物多样性。考虑到深海生态系统对温度变化的敏感性，人类引起的气候变化导致的深海温度预测变化可能比预期的更具不利后果。
