Marine biodiversity-ecosystem functions under uncertain environmental futures
Authors
Bulling, Mark T.Hicks, Natalie
Murray, L.
Paterson, David M.
Raffaelli, D.
White, Piran C. L.
Solan, Martin
Issue Date
2013-05-24
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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 NH 4 -N into the water column, but no effect of species richness on the release of PO 4 -P. Higher temperatures and greater concen- trations 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.Citation
Marine biodiversity-ecosystem functions under uncertain environmental futures 2010, 365 (1549):2107 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological SciencesJournal
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological SciencesDOI
10.1098/rstb.2010.0022Type
ArticleISSN
0962-84361471-2970
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1098/rstb.2010.0022
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