Spatiotemporal variability in Terminos Lagoon (Mexico) waters during the 2009–2010 drought reveals upcoming trophic status shift in response to climate change Renaud Fichez, Carlos Linares, Sandrine Chifflet, Pascal Conan, Adolfo Contreras Ruiz Esparza, Lionel Denis, Pascal Douillet, Christian Grenz, Jean-François Ghiglione, Francisco Gutiérrez Mendieta, et al. To cite this version: Renaud Fichez, Carlos Linares, Sandrine Chifflet, Pascal Conan, Adolfo Contreras Ruiz Esparza, et al.. Spatiotemporal variability in Terminos Lagoon (Mexico) waters during the 2009–2010 drought reveals upcoming trophic status shift in response to climate change. Regional Environmental Change, Springer Verlag, In press, 10.1007/s10113-019-01519-2. hal-02147089 HAL Id: hal-02147089 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02147089 Submitted on 4 Jun 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Regional Environmental Change https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-019-01519-2 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Spatiotemporal variability in Terminos Lagoon (Mexico) waters – during the 2009 2010 drought reveals upcoming trophic status shift in response to climate change 1 2 1 3 4 Renaud Fichez & Carlos Linares & Sandrine Chifflet & Pascal Conan & Adolfo Contreras Ruiz Esparza & 5 & 1 & 1 & 3 & 6 & Lionel Denis Pascal Douillet Christian Grenz Jean-François Ghiglione Francisco Gutiérrez Mendieta 1 7 3 4 Montserrat Origel-Moreno & Alain Muñoz Caravaca & Mireille Pujo-Pay & Jorge Zavala-Hidalgo Received: 8 March 2018 /Accepted: 11 May 2019 Abstract The 2009–2010 El Niño was accompanied by a severe drought strongly impacting Mexico as well as Central America, the Caribbean, and the southern USA. The present work aims at assessing how such a major climatic event impacted the hydrological typology of transitional waters in Terminos Lagoon, one of the largest shallow tropical lagoons fringing the Gulf of Mexico. Spatiotemporal inter-comparison of hydrological conditions was conducted by pairing a reference multiparametric dataset (14 hydrological parameters versus 34 sampling stations) averaged over the October 2008 to July 2010 period with each sampling occurrence dataset and running Principal Component Analyses (PCA), setting the reference-survey dataset as active variables and each sampling occurrence dataset as non-active (supplementary) variables. It revealed that the exceptional deficit in freshwater supply to the lagoon during the 2009–2010 El Niño drastically reduced hydrological diversity and lowered the trophic status of the lagoon. Short-term shifts in environmental status are common in transitional waters and responsible for temporary shifts in community structure but climate change projections show a significant long-term decrease in the freshwater discharge at the regional scale that will impact Terminos Lagoon as well as other coastal lagoons of Mexico and Central America. When combined with sea level rise, such a decrease will result in a long-term shift in hydrological conditions with a subsequent increase in salinity and a decrease in the diversity of environmental conditions affecting trophic status, will have a long-term impact on the biota. Keywords Coastal lagoon . Hydrology . Trophic status . El Niño . Global change . Climate change, Mexico Editor: Erika Coppola * Renaud Fichez Christian Grenz [email protected] [email protected] Jean-François Ghiglione Carlos Linares [email protected] [email protected] Francisco Gutiérrez Mendieta Sandrine Chifflet [email protected] [email protected] Montserrat Origel-Moreno Pascal Conan [email protected] [email protected] Alain Muñoz Caravaca Adolfo Contreras Ruiz Esparza [email protected] [email protected] Mireille Pujo-Pay [email protected] Lionel Denis [email protected] Jorge Zavala-Hidalgo [email protected] Pascal Douillet [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article R. Fichez et al. Introduction effect relationship, regardless of what spatiotemporal variabil- ity has to teach us about the flexibility of tropical transitional Littoral regions accommodate a broad range of coastal sys- systems and about the most probable scenarios at stake in tems with heterogeneous water bodies often referred to as terms of environmental response to global change. Such a lack “transitional waters” characterized by strong variability in sa- of information on the distribution and temporal variability of linity as well as in most environmental parameters of natural environmental parameters is especially critical for coastal or anthropogenic origin which are driven by the balance be- tropical systems of emerging and developing countries where tween marine and freshwater inputs (Elliott and McLusky the potential threat of global change is increasingly acknowl- 2002; McLusky and Elliott 2007). Response of transitional edged as a key parameter detrimentally impacting sustainable waters to ongoing climate change has risen to the highest level development. This is even more salient for the Mesoamerican of economic and political priority, resulting in a growing de- region (Central America and Southern Mexico), which is con- mand for the accurate scientific expertise essential for the sidered to be the most prominent tropical climate change hot- definition; implementation; and control of ecologically, so- spot worldwide (Giorgi 2006) and which is increasingly vul- cially, and economically effective management plans. This is nerable to extreme climatic events (Hidalgo et al. 2013; especially true in the Terminos Lagoon area, on the southern Vázquez-González et al. 2014). Gulf coast of Mexico, which has been singled out as being The present study was conducted on the very large and vulnerable to climate change (Magrin et al. 2007), potentially shallow coastal Terminos Lagoon during a time period includ- exposed by the end of the twenty-first century to a drastic ing the 2009–2010 El Niño Southern Oscillation positive decrease in river discharge from the Usumacinta-Grijalva anomaly when Mexico experienced the most severe drought River (Kemp et al. 2016), and subject to general sea level rise since 1941 (Baringer et al. 2010). Its objectives, based on a 2- in the range 0.5 to 1 m (Magrin et al. 2007;Rahmstorf2012). year hydrological survey, aimed to (i) apply a data treatment Here, as in all other transitional water systems, a proper as- allowing for temporal intercomparison of typology ap- sessment of spatiotemporal variability must be considered as a proaches; (ii) analyze what such an intercomparison could prerequisite to the scientific establishment of cause to effect reveal in terms of seasonal cycling and climate change in the relationships between global change and shifts in environmen- specific context of the severe 2009–2010 El Niño–related tal conditions. However, spatiotemporal variability issues drought period; and (iii) assess potential long-term environ- have often been overlooked in environmental studies, raising mental alteration in Terminos Lagoon in the context of climate the risk of drawing insufficiently supported scientific interpre- change projection scenarios. tation and of misguiding environmental policies toward inef- ficient management action plans (Lucena-Moya et al. 2012). Extracting comprehensive information from multiparametric Material and methods environmental databases remains a challenge and environmetric approaches based on multivariate data ordina- Study site and environmental conditions tion have been proven to be a rigorous and integrative way of assessing spatial and temporal variability of transitional waters The selection of Terminos Lagoon as a focus site for the study (Fichez et al. 2010;Shinetal.2013). The approach developed of tropical coastal lagoon transitional waters arose logically in the present study specifically focuses on the physico- from its exceptional status as one of the largest shallow sys- chemical and biogeochemical indicators of water quality that tems in the Gulf of Mexico, where conservation policies con- are commonly measured in environmental status assessments. flicted with anthropogenic pressure (Grenz et al. 2017). Establishing a multiparametric characterization of transitional Moreover, Terminos Lagoon benefited from a significant sci- waters has been identified as a key integrative diagnostic ap- entific background and has been the recent object of renewed proach that is still strongly lacking in environmental manage- interest from the scientific community leading to its selection ment (Poikane et al. 2014). Recent concerns about delineating as a “pilot site” within the framework of the Global environmental status categories for transitional waters have Environment Facility (GEF) Program on the Gulf of largely focused on intercomparison between distinct systems, Mexico-Large Marine Ecosystem (GoM-LME) (García-Ríos to the detriment of the preliminary assessment of internal spa- et al.