Homogenization and miniaturization of habitat structure in temperate marine forests.
Glob Chang Biol
; 27(20): 5262-5275, 2021 10.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34308551
ABSTRACT
Humans are rapidly transforming the structural configuration of the planet's ecosystems, but these changes and their ecological consequences remain poorly quantified in underwater habitats. Here, we show that the loss of forest-forming seaweeds and the rise of ground-covering 'turfs' across four continents consistently resulted in the miniaturization of underwater habitat structure, with seascapes converging towards flattened habitats with smaller habitable spaces. Globally, turf seascapes occupied a smaller architectural trait space and were structurally more similar across regions than marine forests, evidencing habitat homogenization. Surprisingly, such habitat convergence occurred despite turf seascapes consisting of vastly different species richness and with different taxa providing habitat architecture, as well as across disparate drivers of marine forest decline. Turf seascapes contained high sediment loads, with the miniaturization of habitat across 100s of km in mid-Western Australia resulting in reefs retaining an additional ~242 million tons of sediment (four orders of magnitude more than the sediments delivered fluvially annually). Together, this work demonstrates that the replacement of marine forests by turfs is a generalizable phenomenon that has profound consequences for the ecology of temperate reefs.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Algas Marinas
/
Ecosistema
Límite:
Humans
País como asunto:
Oceania
Idioma:
En
Año:
2021
Tipo del documento:
Article