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Global imprint of climate change on marine life
Poloczanska, E.S.; Brown, C.J.; Sydeman, W.J.; Kiessling, W.; Schoeman, D.S.; Moore, P.J.; Brander, K.; Bruno, J.F.; Buckley, L.B.; Burrows, M.T.; Duarte, C.M.; Halpen, B.S.; Holding, J.; Kappel, C.V.; O'Connor, M.I.; Pandolfi, J.M.; Parmesan, C.; Schwing, F.; Thompson, A.N.; Richardson, A.J. (2013). Global imprint of climate change on marine life. Nat. Clim. Chang. 3(10): 919–925. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1958
In: Nature Climate Change. Nature Publishing Group: London. ISSN 1758-678X; e-ISSN 1758-6798, more
Peer reviewed article  

Available in  Authors 

Keywords
    Aquatic organisms > Marine organisms
    Climatic changes
    Impact
    Marine/Coastal

Authors  Top 
  • Poloczanska, E.S.
  • Brown, C.J.
  • Sydeman, W.J.
  • Kiessling, W.
  • Schoeman, D.S.
  • Moore, P.J.
  • Brander, K.
  • Bruno, J.F.
  • Buckley, L.B.
  • Burrows, M.T.
  • Duarte, C.M., more
  • Halpen, B.S.
  • Holding, J.
  • Kappel, C.V.
  • O'Connor, M.I.
  • Pandolfi, J.M.
  • Parmesan, C.
  • Schwing, F.
  • Thompson, A.N.
  • Richardson, A.J., more

Abstract
    Past meta-analyses of the response of marine organisms to climate change have examined a limited range of locations, taxonomic groups and/or biological responses. This has precluded a robust overview of the effect of climate change in the global ocean. Here, we synthesized all available studies of the consistency of marine ecological observations with expectations under climate change. This yielded a meta-database of 1,735 marine biological responses for which either regional or global climate change was considered as a driver. Included were instances of marine taxa responding as expected, in a manner inconsistent with expectations, and taxa demonstrating no response. From this database, 81–83% of all observations for distribution, phenology, community composition, abundance, demography and calcification across taxa and ocean basins were consistent with the expected impacts of climate change. Of the species responding to climate change, rates of distribution shifts were, on average, consistent with those required to track ocean surface temperature changes. Conversely, we did not find a relationship between regional shifts in spring phenology and the seasonality of temperature. Rates of observed shifts in species’ distributions and phenology are comparable to, or greater, than those for terrestrial systems.

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