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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Ecosystem Ecology
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1477142

Temporal trends of community and climate changes in the Anthropocene: 21-year dynamics of four major functional groups in a rocky intertidal habitat along the Pacific coast of Japan

Provisionally accepted
Hiroki SATO Hiroki SATO 1*Ken Ishida Ken Ishida 2Takashi Noda Takashi Noda 1
  • 1 Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan
  • 2 Fisheries Resources Institute, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, Shiogama, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The influence of climate change on marine organism abundance has rarely been assessed (1) at the functional-group level; (2) simultaneously in major functional groups within the same ecosystem; (3) for >10 years; and (4) at metapopulation/community scales. A study simultaneously addressing these gaps would greatly enhance our understanding of the influence of climate change on marine ecosystems. Here, we analyzed 21 years of abundance data at the functional-group and species levels on a regional scale for four major functional groups (benthic algae, sessile animals, herbivorous benthos, and carnivorous benthos) in a rocky intertidal habitat along the northeastern Pacific coast of Japan. We aimed to examine the 21-year trends in regional abundance at both functional-group and species levels, plus their driving mechanisms and their dependence on species properties (thermal niche, calcification status, and vertical niche). Significant temporal trends in abundance were detected at functional-group levels for benthic algae (increasing) and herbivores and carnivores (both decreasing); they followed the temporal population trends of the dominant species. At species level, the metapopulation size of 12 of 31 species were increasing and 4 of those were decreasing, depending on the thermal niche and species calcification status. At both functional-group and species levels, temporal trends in abundance are caused by the direct or indirect influence of warming and ocean acidification. Comparing these results with community responses to marine heat waves in the same study area offered two implications: (1) long-term ecosystem changes associated with global warming will be unpredictable from the community response to marine heat waves, possibly owing to a lack of knowledge of the influence of calcifying status on species' responses to climate change; and (2) thermal niches contribute greatly to predictions of the influence of warming on population size, regardless of the time scale.

    Keywords: Climate Change, community dynamics, abundance, Rocky intertidal shore, Temporal trend, functional group, thermal niche, Species calcifying status

    Received: 07 Aug 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 SATO, Ishida and Noda. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Hiroki SATO, Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Hokkaidō, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.