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The Future of Marine Biodiversity and Marine Ecosystem Functioning in UK

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The Future of Marine Biodiversity and Marine Ecosystem Functioning in UK Botanica Marina 2018; 61(6): 521–535 Review Frithjof C. Küpper* and Nicholas A. Kamenos The future of marine biodiversity and marine ecosystem functioning in UK coastal and territorial waters (including UK Overseas Territories) – with an emphasis on marine macrophyte communities https://doi.org/10.1515/bot-2018-0076 overexploitation; seabirds; seagrasses; seaweeds; sea Received 13 August, 2018; accepted 23 October, 2018; online first level rise. 20 November, 2018 Abstract: Marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning – Dedicated to: Dr. Susan Loiseaux-de Goer (Roscoff) on the occasion including seaweed communities – in the territorial waters of her 80th birthday (Aug. 5, 2018). of the UK and its Overseas Territories are facing unprec- edented pressures. Key stressors are changes in ecosys- tem functioning due to biodiversity loss caused by ocean Introduction warming (species replacement and migration, e.g. affect- ing kelp forests), sea level rise (e.g. loss of habitats includ- Global trends and stressors affecting marine ing salt marshes), plastic pollution (e.g. entanglement and biodiversity and marine ecosystem function- ingestion), alien species with increasing numbers of alien ing worldwide seaweeds (e.g. outcompeting native species and parasite transmission), overexploitation (e.g. loss of energy sup- The global marine environment is currently undergoing ply further up the food web), habitat destruction (e.g. loss unprecedented change at multiple levels due to multiple of nursery areas for commercially important species) and stressors including climate change, overfishing, eutrophi- ocean acidification (e.g. skeletal weakening of ecosystem cation, colonization by alien species, habitat destruction engineers including coralline algal beds). These stressors (e.g. by coastal developments) and marine litter. Biodiver- are currently affecting biodiversity, and their impact can sity loss rarely occurs on its own, but it is usually a con- be projected for the future. All stressors may act alone or sequence of drivers acting either alone or in synergy. The in synergy. Marine biodiversity provides crucial goods and purpose of this review is to summarize the current state of services. Climate change and biodiversity loss pose new scientific knowledge on biodiversity loss, climate warming challenges for legislation. In particular, there are implica- and ocean acidification, especially for the coastal and ter- tions of climate change for the designation and manage- ritorial waters of the UK, and the relevance and impacts ment of Marine Protected Areas and natural carbon storage of these developments for the UK’s society and economy by marine systems to help control the global climate sys- – however, it should be highlighted that most of the issues tem. The UK currently has legal obligations to protect bio- discussed here are global. diversity under international and European law. Globally, the marine Living Planet Index (LPI) shows a 49% decline in populations of marine mammal, bird, Keywords: alien species; biodiversity loss; climate reptile and fish species between 1970 and 2012, high- change; ecosystem services; legislation; mangroves; lighting dramatic biodiversity loss (WWF 2015). Climate change and other forms of environmental change also *Corresponding author: Frithjof C. Küpper, School of Biological pose new challenges to legislation. For example, the Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Cruickshank Building, network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in UK waters St Machar Drive, Aberdeen AB24 3UU, Scotland, UK; was in some cases designed around some localized fea- and Marine Biodiscovery Centre, Department of Chemistry, tures which are potentially vulnerable to climate change, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, Scotland, UK, meaning that the on-going utility of MPAs as a conserva- e-mail: [email protected] Nicholas A. Kamenos: School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, tion tool could be affected (MCCIP 2015). A general chal- Gregory Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, lenge for assessing most types of such change affecting Scotland, UK the distribution and abundance of living organisms in the Open Access. © 2018 Frithjof C. Küpper, et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License. 522 F.C. Küpper and N.A. Kamenos: The future of the UK’s marine biodiversity marine environment is the shortage or complete lack of and maritime climatic conditions of the UK. Consequently, historic baseline data to assess environmental change, this has received considerable attention for the public. which has been termed the “shifting baselines concept” While, at present, long-term changes impacting the (Jackson et al. 2001, Knowlton and Jackson 2008). UK are not detectable (McCarthy et al. 2015), the North Atlantic Current demonstrates the importance of ocean temperature for determining marine biodiversity. Ocean Current trends and effects on UK temperature is projected to rise by between 1.2°C and 3.2°C by 2100, depending on greenhouse gas emissions interests (Genner et al. 2017). However, an increased frequency of marine heatwaves is clearly detectable, as much in UK Key stressors currently impacting marine life in UK waters and European waters as worldwide (Oliver et al. 2018). are (1) biodiversity loss, (2) ocean warming due to climate Global average marine heatwave frequency and dura- change, (3) overexploitation (in particular, overfishing) of tion increased by 34% and 17%, respectively, resulting certain target species affecting the food web, (4) plastic in a 54% increase in annual marine heatwave days glob- pollution and (5) alien species. ally. Importantly, these trends can largely be explained by increases in mean ocean temperatures, suggesting that Biodiversity loss and implications for further increases in marine heatwave days under contin- ecosystem functioning ued global warming can be expected. This is likely to have a number of effects, depending Little knowledge exists about overall biodiversity loss in UK on future climate change scenarios, including on species waters but significant range shifts are ongoing mostly due distributions (Cheung et al. 2009b). For example, in the to climate change, which are expected to be compounded North Sea and on the Scottish west coast, a survey of >300 in the next decades by ocean acidification (see below). fish species has revealed that taxa with southern biogeo- Globally, climate change alone is predicted to result in dra- graphic affinities have increased in abundance since the matic species turnovers of over 60% of the present biodi- mid-1990s (Beare et al. 2004), with trawl data suggesting versity, implying ecological disturbances that potentially that the North Sea is experiencing waves of immigration disrupt ecosystem services (Cheung et al. 2009b). Studying by exotic, southern species (e.g. red mullet, anchovy and sedimentary, soft-bottom systems in the UK’s North Sea, pilchard). For marine macrophytes, a recent review of a recent study into the links between changes in benthic 42 studies (King et al. 2018a) found clear differences in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (Frid and Caswell thermal niche between geographically separated popula- 2015) found that the relationship is idiosyncratic, but a tions, suggesting that non-trailing edge populations may degree of temporal stability in functioning is maintained also be vulnerable to future warming trends and, given such that the ecosystem services which such soft-bottom their limited dispersal capacity, such population loss may systems underpin would also be stable during decadal not be offset by immigration. It also highlighted how next and longer-term changes. Further implications for marine generation sequencing (NGS) is allowing unprecedented carbon storage are discussed below. mechanistic insight into plasticity and adaptation, in par- ticular in the context of climate change-related impacts. In Australian temperate reef communities, rapid Ocean warming due to climate change climate-driven regime shift has resulted in loss of their defining kelp forests and replacement by persistent The North Atlantic Current (Gulf Stream) creates a climatic seaweed turfs (Wernberg et al. 2016). After decades of anomaly by providing a more temperate climate than what ocean warming, extreme marine heat waves forced a would be expected at the UK’s latitude. This, in turn, is a 100-km range contraction of extensive kelp forests and determining factor for the biodiversity found in the North saw temperate species replaced by seaweeds, inverte- Atlantic and therefore around the UK and Western Europe. brates, corals, and fishes characteristic of subtropical and The North Atlantic Current is part of the Atlantic Meridional tropical waters. This community-wide tropicalization fun- Overturning Circulation (AMOC), abrupt changes of which damentally altered key ecological processes, suppressing have long been hypothesized to be a central driver for the the recovery of kelp forests. onset and end of ice ages (Henry et al. 2016). Any change to Ocean warming will interact with other stressors, the AMOC system and, consequently, rapid climate change, such as ocean acidification and increased storminess, would have profound implications for both the terrestrial which are well documented in UK and European seas F.C. Küpper and N.A. Kamenos: The future of the UK’s marine biodiversity 523 (Mackenzie and Schiedek 2007). The exact extent of the as a major environmental issue
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