Long-term oceanographic and ecological research in the Western English Channel.

Long-term research in the western English Channel, undertaken by the marine laboratories in Plymouth, is described and details of survey methods, sites, and time series given in this chapter. Major findings are summarized and their limitations outlined. Current research, with recent reestablishment and expansion of many sampling programmes, is presented, and possible future approaches are indicated. These unique long-term data sets provide an environmental baseline for predicting complex ecological responses to local, regional, and global environmental change. Between 1888 and the present, investigations have been carried out into the physical, chemical, and biological components (ranging from plankton and fish to benthic and intertidal assemblages) of the western English Channel ecosystem. The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom has performed the main body of these observations. More recent contributions come from the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey, now the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science, dating from 1957; the Institute for Marine Environmental Research, from 1974 to 1987; and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, which was formed by amalgamation of the Institute for Marine Environmental Research and part of the Marine Biological Association, from 1988. Together, these contributions constitute a unique data series-one of the longest and most comprehensive samplings of environmental and marine biological variables in the world. Since the termination of many of these time series in 1987-1988 during a reorganisation of UK marine research, there has been a resurgence of interest in long-term environmental change. Many programmes have been restarted and expanded with support from several agencies. The observations span significant periods of warming (1921-1961; 1985-present) and cooling (1962-1980). During these periods of change, the abundance of key species underwent dramatic shifts. The first period of warming saw changes in zooplankton, pelagic fish, and larval fish, including the collapse of an important herring fishery. During later periods of change, shifts in species abundances have been reflected in other assemblages, such as the intertidal zone and the benthic fauna. Many of these changes appear to be related to climate, manifested as temperature changes, acting directly or indirectly. The hypothesis that climate is a forcing factor is widely supported today and has been reinforced by recent studies that show responses of marine organisms to climatic attributes such as the strength of the North Atlantic Oscillation. The long-term data also yield important insights into the effects of anthropogenic disturbances such as fisheries exploitation and pollution. Comparison of demersal fish hauls over time highlights fisheries effects not only on commercially important species but also on the entire demersal community. The effects of acute ("Torrey Canyon" oil spill) and chronic (tributyltin [TBT] antifoulants) pollution are clearly seen in the intertidal records. Significant advances in diverse scientific disciplines have been generated from research undertaken alongside the long-term data series. Many concepts in marine biological textbooks have originated in part from this work (e.g. the seasonal cycle of plankton, the cycling of nutrients, the pelagic food web trophic interactions, and the influence of hydrography on pelagic communities). Associated projects currently range from studies of marine viruses and bacterial ecology to zooplankton feeding dynamics and validation of ocean colour satellite sensors. Recent advances in technology mean these long-term programmes are more valuable than ever before. New technology collects data on finer temporal and spatial scales and can be used to capture processes that operate on multiple scales and help determine their influence in the marine environment. The MBA has been in the forefront of environmental modelling of shelf seas since the early 1970s. Future directions being pursued include the continued development of coupled physical-ecosystem models using western English Channel time-series data. These models will include both the recent high-resolution data and the long-term time-series information to predict effects of future climate change scenarios. It would be beneficial to provide more spatial and high-resolution temporal context to these data, which are fundamental for capturing processes that operate at multiple scales and understanding how they operate within the marine environment. This is being achieved through employment of technologies such as satellite-derived information and advanced telemetry instruments that provide real-time in situ profile data from the water column.

Regional climatic warming drives long-term community changes of British marine fish.

Climatic change has been implicated as the cause of abundance fluctuations in marine fish populations worldwide, but the effects on whole communities are poorly understood. We examined the effects of regional climatic change on two fish assemblages using independent datasets from inshore marine (English Channel, 1913-2002) and estuarine environments (Bristol Channel, 1981-2001). Our results show that climatic change has had dramatic effects on community composition. Each assemblage contained a subset of dominant species whose abundances were strongly linked to annual mean sea-surface temperature. Species' latitudinal ranges were not good predictors of species-level responses, however, and the same species did not show congruent trends between sites. This suggests that within a region, populations of the same species may respond differently to climatic change, possibly owing to additional local environmental determinants, interspecific ecological interactions and dispersal capacity. This will make species-level responses difficult to predict within geographically differentiated communities.

Detection of environmental change in a marine ecosystem--evidence from the western English Channel.

To separate human-induced changes from natural fluctuations in marine life requires long-term research. The western English Channel has been investigated from Plymouth for over 100 years. The abundance of marine life has been recorded and related to physical changes in the environment. By comparing different parts of the ecosystem we can demonstrate historic natural fluctuations, allowing prediction of effects of future global change. From the 1920s to the 1950s there was a period of warming of the sea, with increases in abundance of species of fish, plankton and intertidal organisms that are typically common in warmer waters to the south of Britain. After 1962 the sea cooled down and northern cold-water species became more abundant. Since the 1980s regional sea surface temperature has increased again and warm-water species are once more becoming abundant.

MODELING THE RESPONSE OF POPULATIONS OF COMPETING SPECIES TO CLIMATE CHANGE.

Biotic interactions will modulate species' responses to climate change. Many approaches to predicting the impacts of climate change on biodiversity so far have been based purely on a climate envelope approach and have not considered direct and indirect species interactions. Using a long-term observational data set (>30 years) of competing intertidal barnacle species, we built a hierarchy of age-structured two-taxa population models (Semibalanus balanoides vs. Chthamalus montagui and C. stellatus combined as one taxon) to test if the presence of a dominant competitor can mediate climatic influence on the subordinate species. Models were parameterized using data from populations on the south coast of southwest England and verified by hindcasting using independent north coast population data. Recruitment of the dominant competitor, S. balanoides, is driven by temperature. The mechanisms of competition explored included simple space preemption and temperature-driven interference competition. The results indicate that interspecific competition between juvenile barnacles is important in regulating chthamalid density but not that of the dominant competitor S. balanoides. Simulations were carried out using alternative future climate scenarios to predict barnacle population abundance over the next century. Under all emission scenarios, the cold-water S. balanoides is predicted to virtually disappear from southwest England by the 2050s, leading to the competitive release of Chthamalus throughout the entire region and thereby substantially increasing its abundance and occupied habitat (by increasing vertical range on the shore). Our results demonstrate that climate change can profoundly affect the abundance and distribution of species through both the direct effects of temperature on survival, and also by altering important negative interactions through shifting competitive balances and essentially removing dominant competitors or predators. Climate change impacts on organisms are unlikely to lead only to straightforward, easily predictable changes in population size and distribution. The complex, indirect effects of climate change need to be taken into account if we are to accurately forecast the long-term effects of global warming.