Dataset Information

Climate-driven changes in macrobenthic communities in the Mediterranean Sea: A 10-year study in the Bay of Banyuls-sur-Mer.

ABSTRACT: Marine ecosystems worldwide are affected by both natural variation and human activities; to disentangle and understand their individual role in influencing the macrobenthic community composition is challenging. The relationship between interannual variability in atmospheric circulation, dictated by the climatic oscillation indices, and the benthic macrofauna composition was assessed at four sampling sites located in the Bay of Banyuls-sur-Mer (NW Mediterranean Sea). Between 2004 and 2013, these sites were sampled annually during autumn/winter and analyzed for sediment grain-size and benthic macrofauna composition (species richness, abundance, and biomass). Temporal changes in these descriptors were correlated with two climatic indices (NAO and WeMO indices) and a set of environmental parameters integrated over three different time periods (i.e., whole year, springtime, and wintertime). Our results confirm the occurrence of major temporal changes in the composition of macrobenthic communities within the Gulf of Lions. More specifically, the results indicate that (a) the WeMO appears to be more closely related to benthic macrofauna composition in the Bay of Banyuls-sur-Mer than the NAO, (b) winter is a better integration period than spring or the whole year as a proxy for community composition changes, and (c) Rhône River water flow is likely involved in the control of benthic macrofauna composition in the whole Gulf of Lions. The present study highlights the importance of WeMO as a regional proxy, which can be used to evaluate changes in benthic macrofauna linked to climatic variability.

SUBMITTER: Bonifacio P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6787848 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Climate-driven changes in macrobenthic communities in the Mediterranean Sea: A 10-year study in the Bay of Banyuls-sur-Mer.

Bonifácio Paulo P Grémare Antoine A Amouroux Jean-Michel JM Labrune Céline C

Ecology and evolution 20190829 18

Marine ecosystems worldwide are affected by both natural variation and human activities; to disentangle and understand their individual role in influencing the macrobenthic community composition is challenging. The relationship between interannual variability in atmospheric circulation, dictated by the climatic oscillation indices, and the benthic macrofauna composition was assessed at four sampling sites located in the Bay of Banyuls-sur-Mer (NW Mediterranean Sea). Between 2004 and 2013, these ...[more]

PMID: 31624562

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Project description:Ecological resilience has become a conceptual cornerstone bridging ecological processes to conservation needs. Global change is increasingly associated with local changes in environmental conditions that can cause abrupt ecosystem reorganizations attending to system-specific resilience fluctuations with time (i.e. resilience dynamics). Here we assess resilience dynamics associated with climate-driven ecosystems transitions, expressed as changes in the relevant contribution of species with different life-history strategies, in two benthopelagic systems. We analysed data from 1994 to 2019 coming from a scientific bottom trawl survey in two environmentally contrasting ecosystems in the Western Mediterranean Sea-Northern Spain and Alboran Sea. Benthopelagic species were categorized according to their life-history strategies (opportunistic, periodic and equilibrium), ecosystem functions and habitats. We implemented an Integrated Resilience Assessment (IRA) to elucidate the response mechanism of the studied ecosystems to several candidate environmental stressors and quantify the ecosystems' resilience. We demonstrate that both ecosystems responded discontinuously to changes in chlorophyll-a concentration more than any other stressor. The response in Northern Spain indicated a more overarching regime shift than in the Alboran Sea. Opportunistic fish were unfavoured in both ecosystems in the recent periods, while invertebrate species of short life cycle were generally favoured, particularly benthic species in the Alboran Sea. The study illustrates that the resilience dynamics of the two ecosystems were mostly associated with fluctuating productivity, but subtle and long-term effects from sea warming and fishing reduction were also discernible. Such dynamics are typical of systems with wide environmental gradient such as the Northern Spain, as well as systems with highly hydrodynamic and of biogeographical complexity such as the Alboran Sea. We stress that management should become more adaptive by utilizing the knowledge on the systems' productivity thresholds and underlying shifts to help anticipate both short-term/less predictable events and long-term/expected effects of climate change.

Dataset Information

Climate-driven changes in macrobenthic communities in the Mediterranean Sea: A 10-year study in the Bay of Banyuls-sur-Mer.

Publications

Climate-driven changes in macrobenthic communities in the Mediterranean Sea: A 10-year study in the Bay of Banyuls-sur-Mer.

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