Rates of warming and the global sensitivity of shallow water

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TitleRates of warming and the global sensitivity of shallow water marine invertebrates to elevated temperatureAbstractAssessing the sensitivity of ectotherms to variability in their environment is a key challenge, especially in the face of rapid warming of the Earth's surface. Comparing the upper temperature limits of species from different regions, at different rates of warming, has recently been developed as a method to estimate the long term sensitivity of shallow marine fauna. This paper presents the first preliminary data from four tropical Ascension Island, five temperate New Zealand and six Antarctic McMurdo Sound species. The slopes and intercepts of these three assemblages fitted within the overall pattern for previously measured assemblages from high temperature tolerance in tropical fauna and a shallow slope, to low temperature tolerance and a steep slope in Antarctic fauna. Despite the tropical oceanic Ascension Island being subject to upwelling events, the fit of the intercept and slope within the overall assemblage pattern suggests that the upwelling is sufficiently predictable for the fauna to have evolved the plasticity to respond. This contrasts with previously analysed species from the Peruvian upwelling region, which had a steeper slope than other temperate fauna. The speed and capacity of faunal assemblages to acclimatize their physiology is likely to determine the shape of the rates of warming relationship, and will be a key mechanism underpinning vulnerability to climate warming. Copyright Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2014.AcknowledgementsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Bev Dickson and the staff at both Portobello and Doubtful Sound provided vital technical support in New Zealand. Jess Ericson, Tom and Linnaea Bird helped maintain the long term incubations in Portobello Marine Laboratory. The United States Antarctic Program divers, under the leadership of Rob Robbins, collected specimens at McMurdo. We are grateful to the Shallow Marine Surveys Group and the South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute for organizing the expedition. We are also very grateful to the Ascension Island Government, the members of staff at the Conservation Centre and Ascension Island Dive Club for their cooperation, accommodation and hospitality. FINANCIAL SUPPORT This research was funded by NERC British Antarctic Survey Polar Science for Planet Earth funding (Adaptations and Physiology work package), the University of Otago Research Committee, Antarctica New Zealand (event no. K-068), the TransAntarctic Association (TAA05/08). A.E.B. was funded by a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada post-doctoral fellowship. The funding for work in Ascension came from a grant to Dr Paul Brickle from the Darwin Initiative (EIDCF012).

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1st AuthorMorley, S.AuthorMorley, S.Bates, A.Lamare, M.Richard, J.Nguyen, K.Brown, J.Peck, L.Year2016JournalJournal of the Marine Biological Association of the United KingdomVolume96Number1Pages159-165DOI10.1017/S0025315414000307URLhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/recor.....160f60777e54327e014223240KeywordsInvertebrata, rank5Author KeywordsAntarcticaAscension Islandassemblageclimate changeMcMurdo SoundNew Zealandrates of warmingvulnerabilitywarming

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TypeArticleCitationMorley, S., Bates, A., Lamare, M., Richard, J., Nguyen, K., Brown, J. and Peck, L. (2016). Rates of warming and the global sensitivity of shallow water marine invertebrates to elevated temperature. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 96(1): 159-165 IdentifierMorley2016Relevancerank5

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Lamare, M.