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Nature Climate Change | Letter

An extreme climatic event alters marine ecosystem structure in a global biodiversity hotspot

Journal name:
Nature Climate Change
Volume:
3,
Pages:
78–82
Year published:
DOI:
doi:10.1038/nclimate1627
Received
Accepted
Published online

Extreme climatic events, such as heat waves, are predicted to increase in frequency and magnitude as a consequence of global warming but their ecological effects are poorly understood, particularly in marine ecosystems1, 2, 3. In early 2011, the marine ecosystems along the west coast of Australia—a global hotspot of biodiversity and endemism4, 5—experienced the highest-magnitude warming event on record. Sea temperatures soared to unprecedented levels and warming anomalies of 2–4 °C persisted for more than ten weeks along >2,000 km of coastline. We show that biodiversity patterns of temperate seaweeds, sessile invertebrates and demersal fish were significantly different after the warming event, which led to a reduction in the abundance of habitat-forming seaweeds and a subsequent shift in community structure towards a depauperate state and a tropicalization of fish communities. We conclude that extreme climatic events are key drivers of biodiversity patterns and that the frequency and intensity of such episodes have major implications for predictive models of species distribution and ecosystem structure, which are largely based on gradual warming trends.

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  1. The 2011 heat wave in the southeast Indian Ocean.
    Figure 1: The 2011 heat wave in the southeast Indian Ocean.

    a, Blended sea surface temperature anomaly map for March 2011 (relative to a 1971–2000 baseline), indicating a warming anomaly of >2.5 °C along the warm temperate western coast of Australia. The Jurien Bay (JB) and Hamelin Bay (HB) study regions are also shown. b,c, Weekly temperature anomalies during 2011 (relative to means of the preceding five years) generated from in situ measurements at ~ 10 m depth at the sites where community data were collected: Jurien Bay (b) and Hamelin Bay (c).

  2. The ecological structure of marine communities before and after the heat wave of 2011.
    Figure 2: The ecological structure of marine communities before and after the heat wave of 2011.

    a,b, Principal coordinates analysis of benthic (invertebrates and macroalgae; a) and fish (b) community structure on rocky reefs at each study location (J, Jurien Bay; H, Hamelin Bay) before and after the 2011 warming event. PCO1 and PCO2 are the first and second principal coordinates axes, indicating percentage of variation explained by each axis.

  3. The response of macroalgae and fish to the marine heat wave of 2011.
    Figure 3: The response of macroalgae and fish to the marine heat wave of 2011.

    a–c, Mean percentage cover (±standard error of the mean (s.e.m.), n= three sites with six pooled quadrat samples) during each year of sampling of the kelp E. radiata (a), encrusting coralline algae (b) and turf-forming algae (c) (sampling not conducted in 2008). d–f, Mean abundances (±s.e.m., n= three sites with three pooled transects) of fish species that were major contributors to differences in community structure before and after the heat wave are also shown; P. occidentalis (d), C. assarius (e) and L. lineatus (f) (sampling was not conducted in 2008 or 2009).

  4. Changes in seaweed canopy cover and tropicalization index for fish communities following the marine heat wave of 2011.
    Figure 4: Changes in seaweed canopy cover and tropicalization index for fish communities following the marine heat wave of 2011.

    a, Mean precentage cover (± s.e.m., n= three sites with six pooled quadrat samples) of the entire macroalgal canopy (that is, kelps and fucoids) and b, mean contribution (± s.e.m., n= three sites with three pooled transects) of tropical species to overall fish community composition during each year of sampling (temperate Western Blue Devil (Paraplesiops meleagris) with tropical C. assarius in the background).

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Affiliations

  1. The UWA Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, Western Australia, Australia

    • Thomas Wernberg,
    • Dan A. Smale,
    • Mads S. Thomsen,
    • Timothy J. Langlois,
    • Thibaut de Bettignies &
    • Scott Bennett

  2. School of Plant Biology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, Western Australia, Australia

    • Thomas Wernberg,
    • Dan A. Smale,
    • Thibaut de Bettignies &
    • Scott Bennett

  3. Australian Institute of Marine Science, 39 Fairway, Crawley 6009, Western Australia, Australia

    • Thomas Wernberg

  4. Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup 6027, Western Australia, Australia

    • Thomas Wernberg,
    • Fernando Tuya,
    • Mads S. Thomsen &
    • Thibaut de Bettignies

  5. BIOGES, Department of Biology, Las Palmas, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Campus Tafira, E-35017, Canary Islands, Spain

    • Fernando Tuya

  6. Universities Space Research Association/Global Modelling and Assimilation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 21114, USA

    • Cecile S. Rousseaux

  7. Shared lead authorship

    • Thomas Wernberg &
    • Dan A. Smale

Contributions

T.W. conceived the research programme and secured financial support. D.A.S. and T.W. contributed equally to the conceptualization and development of the paper. D.A.S. wrote most of the paper, with assistance from T.W., and carried out most analyses, with assistance from T.W. and T.J.L. Fieldwork was orchestrated by T.W. and conducted by T.W., F.T., T.d.B., M.S.T., S.B., T.J.L. and D.A.S. Analysis of temperature data was carried out by C.S.R. and T.W., with assistance from D.A.S. All authors discussed the results.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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