Dataset Information

Climate change rapidly warms and acidifies Australian estuaries.

ABSTRACT: Climate change is impacting ecosystems worldwide. Estuaries are diverse and important aquatic ecosystems; and yet until now we have lacked information on the response of estuaries to climate change. Here we present data from a twelve-year monitoring program, involving 6200 observations of 166 estuaries along >1100 kilometres of the Australian coastline encompassing all estuary morphologies. Estuary temperatures increased by 2.16?°C on average over 12 years, at a rate of 0.2?°C year-1, with waters acidifying at a rate of 0.09?pH units and freshening at 0.086 PSU year-1. The response of estuaries to climate change is dependent on their morphology. Lagoons and rivers are warming and acidifying at the fastest rate because of shallow average depths and limited oceanic exchange. The changes measured are an order of magnitude faster than predicted by global ocean and atmospheric models, indicating that existing global models may not be useful to predict change in estuaries.

SUBMITTER: Scanes E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7156424 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Climate change rapidly warms and acidifies Australian estuaries.

Scanes Elliot E Scanes Peter R PR Ross Pauline M PM

Nature communications 20200414 1

Climate change is impacting ecosystems worldwide. Estuaries are diverse and important aquatic ecosystems; and yet until now we have lacked information on the response of estuaries to climate change. Here we present data from a twelve-year monitoring program, involving 6200 observations of 166 estuaries along >1100 kilometres of the Australian coastline encompassing all estuary morphologies. Estuary temperatures increased by 2.16 °C on average over 12 years, at a rate of 0.2 °C year<sup>-1</sup>, ...[more]

PMID: 32286277

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Project description:Understanding challenges posed by climate change to estuaries and their faunas remains a high priority for managing these systems and their communities. Freshwater discharge into a range of estuary types in south-western Australia between 1990 and 2015 is shown to be related to rainfall. This largely accounts for decreases in discharge in this microtidal region being more pronounced on the west coast than south coast, where rainfall decline was less. Results of an oxygen-balance model imply that, as demonstrated by empirical data for the Swan River Estuary, declines in discharge into a range of estuary types would be accompanied by increases in the extent of hypoxia. In 2013-15, growth and body condition of the teleost Acanthopagrus butcheri varied markedly among three permanently open, one intermittently-open, one seasonally-closed and one normally-closed estuary, with average time taken by females to reach the minimum legal length (MLL) of 250 mm ranging from 3.6 to 17.7 years. It is proposed that, in a given restricted period, these inter-estuary variations in biological characteristics are related more to differences in factors, such as food resources and density, than to temperature and salinity. The biological characteristics of A. butcheri in the four estuaries, for which there are historical data, changed markedly between 1993-96 and 2013-15. Growth of both sexes, and also body condition in all but the normally-closed estuary, declined, with females taking between 1.7 and 2.9 times longer to attain the MLL. Irrespective of period, body condition, and growth are positively related. Age at maturity typically increased between periods, but length at maturity declined only in the estuary in which growth was greatest. The plasticity of the biological characteristics of A. butcheri, allied with confinement to its natal estuary and ability to tolerate a wide range of environmental conditions, makes this sparid and comparable species excellent subjects for assessing estuarine "health."

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Dataset Information

Climate change rapidly warms and acidifies Australian estuaries.

Publications

Climate change rapidly warms and acidifies Australian estuaries.

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