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Climate change and glacier retreat drive shifts in an Antarctic benthic ecosystem
The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is one of the three places on Earth that registered the most intense warming in the last 50 years, almost five times the global mean. This warming has strongly affected the cryosphere, causing the largest ice-shelf collapses ever observed and the retreat of 87% of glacie...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681327/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26702429 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500050 |
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author | Sahade, Ricardo Lagger, Cristian Torre, Luciana Momo, Fernando Monien, Patrick Schloss, Irene Barnes, David K. A. Servetto, Natalia Tarantelli, Soledad Tatián, Marcos Zamboni, Nadia Abele, Doris |
author_facet | Sahade, Ricardo Lagger, Cristian Torre, Luciana Momo, Fernando Monien, Patrick Schloss, Irene Barnes, David K. A. Servetto, Natalia Tarantelli, Soledad Tatián, Marcos Zamboni, Nadia Abele, Doris |
author_sort | Sahade, Ricardo |
collection | PubMed |
description | The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is one of the three places on Earth that registered the most intense warming in the last 50 years, almost five times the global mean. This warming has strongly affected the cryosphere, causing the largest ice-shelf collapses ever observed and the retreat of 87% of glaciers. Ecosystem responses, although increasingly predicted, have been mainly reported for pelagic systems. However, and despite most Antarctic species being benthic, responses in the Antarctic benthos have been detected in only a few species, and major effects at assemblage level are unknown. This is probably due to the scarcity of baselines against which to assess change. We performed repeat surveys of coastal benthos in 1994, 1998, and 2010, analyzing community structure and environmental variables at King George Island, Antarctica. We report a marked shift in an Antarctic benthic community that can be linked to ongoing climate change. However, rather than temperature as the primary factor, we highlight the resulting increased sediment runoff, triggered by glacier retreat, as the potential causal factor. The sudden shift from a “filter feeders–ascidian domination” to a “mixed assemblage” suggests that thresholds (for example, of tolerable sedimentation) and alternative equilibrium states, depending on the reversibility of the changes, could be possible traits of this ecosystem. Sedimentation processes will be increasing under the current scenario of glacier retreat, and attention needs to be paid to its effects along the AP. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4681327 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46813272015-12-23 Climate change and glacier retreat drive shifts in an Antarctic benthic ecosystem Sahade, Ricardo Lagger, Cristian Torre, Luciana Momo, Fernando Monien, Patrick Schloss, Irene Barnes, David K. A. Servetto, Natalia Tarantelli, Soledad Tatián, Marcos Zamboni, Nadia Abele, Doris Sci Adv Research Articles The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is one of the three places on Earth that registered the most intense warming in the last 50 years, almost five times the global mean. This warming has strongly affected the cryosphere, causing the largest ice-shelf collapses ever observed and the retreat of 87% of glaciers. Ecosystem responses, although increasingly predicted, have been mainly reported for pelagic systems. However, and despite most Antarctic species being benthic, responses in the Antarctic benthos have been detected in only a few species, and major effects at assemblage level are unknown. This is probably due to the scarcity of baselines against which to assess change. We performed repeat surveys of coastal benthos in 1994, 1998, and 2010, analyzing community structure and environmental variables at King George Island, Antarctica. We report a marked shift in an Antarctic benthic community that can be linked to ongoing climate change. However, rather than temperature as the primary factor, we highlight the resulting increased sediment runoff, triggered by glacier retreat, as the potential causal factor. The sudden shift from a “filter feeders–ascidian domination” to a “mixed assemblage” suggests that thresholds (for example, of tolerable sedimentation) and alternative equilibrium states, depending on the reversibility of the changes, could be possible traits of this ecosystem. Sedimentation processes will be increasing under the current scenario of glacier retreat, and attention needs to be paid to its effects along the AP. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2015-11-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4681327/ /pubmed/26702429 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500050 Text en Copyright © 2015, The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Sahade, Ricardo Lagger, Cristian Torre, Luciana Momo, Fernando Monien, Patrick Schloss, Irene Barnes, David K. A. Servetto, Natalia Tarantelli, Soledad Tatián, Marcos Zamboni, Nadia Abele, Doris Climate change and glacier retreat drive shifts in an Antarctic benthic ecosystem |
title | Climate change and glacier retreat drive shifts in an Antarctic benthic ecosystem |
title_full | Climate change and glacier retreat drive shifts in an Antarctic benthic ecosystem |
title_fullStr | Climate change and glacier retreat drive shifts in an Antarctic benthic ecosystem |
title_full_unstemmed | Climate change and glacier retreat drive shifts in an Antarctic benthic ecosystem |
title_short | Climate change and glacier retreat drive shifts in an Antarctic benthic ecosystem |
title_sort | climate change and glacier retreat drive shifts in an antarctic benthic ecosystem |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681327/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26702429 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500050 |
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