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Abstract
One of the major challenges to understanding population changes in ecology for assessment purposes is the difficulty in evaluating the suitability of an area for a given species. Here we used a new simple approach able to faithfully predict through time the abundance of two key zooplanktonic species by focusing on the relationship between the species’ environmental preferences and their observed abundances. The approach is applied to the marine copepods Calanus finmarchicus and C. helgolandicus as a case study characterising the multidecadal dynamics of the North Sea ecosystem. We removed all North Sea data from the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) dataset and described for both species a simplified ecological niche using Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and CPR Phytoplankton Colour Index (PCI). We then modelled the dynamics of each species by associating the North Sea’s environmental parameters to the species’ ecological niches, thus creating a method to assess the suitability of this area. By using both C. finmarchicus and C. helgolandicus as indicators, the procedure reproduces the documented switches from cold to warm temperate states observed in the North Sea.
Highlights
Covariations between climate change and the alteration in the abundance, spatial range and phenology of species have been widely reported [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]
The average thermal regime in the North Sea for the same time period was about 10.4uC, indicating that C. finmarchicus was at the edge of its thermal niche while C. helgolandicus was close to its optimum (Figure 3)
We used a niche-based approach to model the temporal dynamic of Calanus finmarchicus and C. helgolandicus, revealing the role that environmental fluctuations have on their abundances
Summary
Covariations between climate change and the alteration in the abundance, spatial range and phenology of species have been widely reported [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. With the increase in model complexity, new integrative approaches are being defined using the concepts of ecological niche [7]. The North Sea, constituting a transitional region between the Atlantic Polar and the Atlantic Westerly Winds biomes [9], is an important productive region providing 5% of the global fish harvest [10]. This region has been monitored by the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey for more than 50 years, providing information on geographical distribution, seasonal cycles and year-to-year changes in the abundance of marine plankton. Its congeneric species C. helgolandicus is more indicative of the Atlantic Westerly Winds biomes and the joint information on both species have traditionally been used to describe the state of the North Sea [13]; an increase in the relative proportion of C. helgolandicus suggests an alteration of North Sea ecosystems towards a warmer dynamic regime
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