| 1. |
- Rasher, Douglas B., et al.
(författare)
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Keystone predators govern the pathway and pace of climate impacts in a subarctic marine ecosystem
- 2020
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Ingår i: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science. - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 369:6509, s. 1351-1355
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Predator loss and climate change are hallmarks of the Anthropocene yet their interactive effects are largely unknown. Here, we show that massive calcareous reefs, built slowly by the alga Clathromorphum nereostratum over centuries to millennia, are now declining because of the emerging interplay between these two processes. Such reefs, the structural base of Aleutian kelp forests, are rapidly eroding because of overgrazing by herbivores. Historical reconstructions and experiments reveal that overgrazing was initiated by the loss of sea otters, Enhydra lutris (which gave rise to herbivores capable of causing bioerosion), and then accelerated with ocean warming and acidification (which increased per capita lethal grazing by 34 to 60% compared with preindustrial times). Thus, keystone predators can mediate the ways in which climate effects emerge in nature and the pace with which they alter ecosystems.
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| 2. |
- Ellis, Robert P., et al.
(författare)
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Does sex really matter? Explaining intraspecies variation in ocean acidification responses
- 2017
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Ingår i: Biology Letters. - : The Royal Society. - 1744-9561 .- 1744-957X. ; 13:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ocean acidification (OA) poses a major threat to marine ecosystems globally, having significant ecological and economic importance. The number and complexity of experiments examining the effects of OA has substantially increased over the past decade, in an attempt to address multi-stressor interactions and long-term responses in an increasing range of aquatic organisms. However, differences in the response of males and females to elevated pCO2 have been investigated in fewer than 4% of studies to date, often being precluded by the difficulty of determining sex non-destructively, particularly in early life stages. Herewe highlight that sex can significantly impact organismresponses to OA, differentially affecting physiology, reproduction, biochemistry and ultimately survival. What is more, these impacts do not always conform to ecological theory based on differential resource allocation towards reproduction, which would predict females to be more sensitive to OA owing to the higher production cost of eggs compared with sperm. Therefore, non-sex-specific studies may overlook subtle but ecologically significant differences in the responses of males and females to OA, with consequences for forecasting the fate of natural populations in a near-future ocean.
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