Benthic fauna declined on a whitening Antarctic continental shelf.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Pineda-Metz SEA
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7203119 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Benthic fauna declined on a whitening Antarctic continental shelf.
Pineda-Metz Santiago E A SEA Gerdes Dieter D Richter Claudio C
Nature communications 20200506 1
Ice retreat in West Antarctica and Antarctic Peninsula has led to important changes in seafloor communities and gains in benthic blue carbon. In most of the Antarctic, however, sea ice increased between the 1970s and 2014, but its effects on the benthos remain largely unexplored. Here, we provide a 1988-2014 record of macro- and megafauna from the north-eastern Weddell Sea shelf, where benthic biomass decreased by two thirds and composition shifted from suspension feeders to deposit feeders. Con ...[more]
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