Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA.
Integr Comp Biol. 2022 Aug 25;62(2):441-460. doi: 10.1093/icb/icac069.
Climate change is causing habitat salinity to transform at unprecedented rates across the globe. While much of the research on climate change has focused on rapid shifts in temperature, far less attention has focused on the effects of changes in environmental salinity. Consequently, predictive studies on the physiological, evolutionary, and migratory responses of organisms and populations to the threats of salinity change are relatively lacking. This omission represents a major oversight, given that salinity is among the most important factors that define biogeographic boundaries in aquatic habitats. In this perspective, we briefly touch on responses of organisms and populations to rapid changes in salinity occurring on contemporary time scales. We then discuss factors that might confer resilience to certain taxa, enabling them to survive rapid salinity shifts. Next, we consider approaches for predicting how geographic distributions will shift in response to salinity change. Finally, we identify additional data that are needed to make better predictions in the future. Future studies on climate change should account for the multiple environmental factors that are rapidly changing, especially habitat salinity.
气候变化正在以前所未有的速度导致全球范围内的栖息地盐度发生变化。尽管气候变化的大部分研究都集中在温度的快速变化上，但对环境盐度变化影响的关注要少得多。因此，关于生物体和种群对盐度变化威胁的生理、进化和迁移反应的预测研究相对较少。鉴于盐度是水生栖息地生物地理边界的最重要因素之一，这种遗漏是一个重大疏忽。从这个角度来看，我们简要讨论了生物体和种群对当代时间尺度上盐度快速变化的反应。然后，我们讨论了可能使某些分类群具有恢复力的因素，使它们能够在快速盐度变化中存活下来。接下来，我们考虑了预测地理分布如何响应盐度变化而发生变化的方法。最后，我们确定了未来做出更好预测所需的其他数据。未来关于气候变化的研究应该考虑到正在迅速变化的多种环境因素，尤其是栖息地盐度。
