Impact of marine heatwaves on seagrass ecosystems

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Title

Ecosystem collapse and climate change

Publisher

Springer

School

School of Science / Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research

RAS ID

36867

Funders

Australian Research Council NOAA C&GC Postdoctoral Fellowship Program UCAR-CPAESS

Grant Number

ARC Number : DE170101524, DP180100668

Grant Link

http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE170101524 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP180100668

Comments

Serrano, O., Arias-Ortiz, A., Duarte, C. M., Kendrick, G. A., & Lavery, P. S. (2021). Impact of marine heatwaves on seagrass ecosystems. In J. G. Canadell & R. B. Jackson (Eds.), Ecosystem collapse and climate change (pp. 345-364). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71330-0_13

Abstract

Seagrass meadows deliver important ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, enhanced biodiversity, and contribution to climate change mitigation and adaption through carbon sequestration and coastal protection. Seagrasses, however, are facing the impacts of ocean warming and marine heatwaves, which are altering their ecological structure and function. Shifts in species composition, mass mortality events, and loss of ecosystem complexity after sudden extreme climate events are increasingly common, weakening the ecosystem services they provide. In the west coast of Australia, Shark Bay holds between 0.7 and 2.4% of global seagrass extent ( > 4300 km2), but in the austral summer of 2010/2011, the Ningaloo El Niño marine heatwave resulted in the collapse of ~1300 km2 of seagrass ecosystem extent. The loss of the seagrass canopy resulted in the erosion and the likely remineralization of ancient carbon stocks into 2–4 Tg CO2-eq over 6 years following seagrass loss, increasing emissions from land-use change in Australia by 4–8% per annum. Seagrass collapse at Shark Bay also impacted marine food webs, including dugongs, dolphins, cormorants, fish communities, and invertebrates. With increasing recurrence and intensity of marine heatwaves, seagrass resilience is being compromised, underlining the need to implement conservation strategies. Such strategies must precede irreversible climate change-driven tipping points in ecosystem functioning and collapse and result from synchronized efforts involving science, policy, and stakeholders. Management should aim to maintain or enhance the resilience of seagrasses, and using propagation material from heatwave-resistant meadows to restore impacted regions arises as a challenging but promising solution against climate change threats. Although scientific evidence points to severe impacts of extreme climate events on seagrass ecosystems, the occurrence of seagrass assemblages across the planet and the capacity of humans to modify the environment sheds some light on the capability of seagrasses to adapt to changing ecological niches.

DOI

10.1007/978-3-030-71330-0_13

Access Rights

subscription content

Link to Full Text

Share

 
COinS