Laboratory of Botany, Department of Plant Biology and Ecology, Fac. of Science and Technology & Research Centre for Experimental Marine Biology and Biotechnology PIE-UPV/EHU, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), PO Box 644, 48080, Bilbao, Spain.
The BITES Lab, Center for Advanced Studies of Blanes (CEAB-CSIC), Access Cala S Francesc 14, 17300, Blanes, Girona, Spain.
Mar Environ Res. 2023 Sep;190:106098. doi: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2023.106098. Epub 2023 Jul 8.
Climate change is causing significant shifts in biological communities worldwide, including the degradation of marine communities. Previous research has predicted that southern Bay of Biscay canopy-forming subtidal macroalgal communities will shift into turf-forming Mediterranean-like communities by the end of the century. These predictions were based on a community-environment relationship model that used macroalgal abundance data and IPCC environmental projections. We have tested the short-term accuracy of that model by resampling the same communities and locations four years later and found the short-term predictions to be consistent with the observed communities. Changes in sea surface temperature were positively correlated with changes in the Community Temperature Index, suggesting that macroalgal communities had responded quickly to global warming. The changes over four years were significant, but canopy-forming macroalgae were more resilient in local sites with favourable temperature conditions. Our study demonstrated that updating predictive models with new data has the potential to yield reliable predictions and inform effective conservation strategies.
气候变化正在导致全球生物群落发生重大变化，包括海洋群落的退化。先前的研究预测，到本世纪末，比斯开湾南部的覆盖层状潮下带大型海藻群落将转变为类似于地中海的丛生状群落。这些预测是基于一个群落-环境关系模型，该模型使用了大型海藻丰度数据和 IPCC 环境预测。我们通过在四年后重新采样相同的群落和地点，测试了该模型的短期准确性，发现短期预测与观察到的群落一致。海面温度的变化与群落温度指数的变化呈正相关，表明大型海藻群落对全球变暖的反应很快。四年间的变化是显著的，但在温度条件有利的本地地点，覆盖层状大型藻类具有更强的恢复力。我们的研究表明，用新数据更新预测模型有可能产生可靠的预测，并为有效的保护策略提供信息。
