Marine biodiversity-ecosystem functions under uncertain environmental futures

作者：Bulling Mark T^*; Hicks Natalie; Murray Leigh; Paterson David M; Raffaelli Dave; White Piran C L; Solan Martin

来源：Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2010, 365(1549): 2107-2116.

DOI：10.1098/rstb.2010.0022

• benthic
• climate change
• bioturbation
• ocean acidification
• uncertainty

Anthropogenic activity is currently leading to dramatic transformations of ecosystems and losses of biodiversity. The recognition that these ecosystems provide services that are essential for human well-being has led to a major interest in the forms of the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship. However, there is a lack of studies examining the impact of climate change on these relationships and it remains unclear how multiple climatic drivers may affect levels of ecosystem functioning. Here, we examine the roles of two important climate change variables, temperature and concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, on the relationship between invertebrate species richness and nutrient release in a model benthic estuarine system. We found a positive relationship between invertebrate species richness and the levels of release of NH4-N into the water column, but no effect of species richness on the release of PO4-P. Higher temperatures and greater concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide had a negative impact on nutrient release. Importantly, we found significant interactions between the climate variables, indicating that reliably predicting the effects of future climate change will not be straightforward as multiple drivers are unlikely to have purely additive effects, resulting in increased levels of uncertainty.

• 出版日期2010-7-12