Climate‐driven range extension of a sea urchin: inferring future trends by analysis of recent population dynamics

By S. Ling, Craig R. Johnson, K. Ridgway, A. Hobday, M. Haddon. 2009

374 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Patterns of climate‐forced range shift in the marine environment are informed by investigating the population dynamics of an ecologically important sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii– Diadematidae) across its newly extended range in Tasmania (southeastern Australia). A growth model of C. rodgersii is developed allowing estimation of a sea urchin age profile and, in combination with abundance data, we correlate the sea urchin population dynamic with respect to environmental signals across the range extension region. Growth patterns did not vary across the extension region; however, there was a strong pattern of decreasing sea urchin age with increasing distance from the historic range. The sequential poleward discovery of the sea urchin, a pattern of declining age and a general poleward reduction in abundance along the eastern Tasmanian coastline are consistent with a model of range extension driven by recent change in patterns of larval dispersal. We explore this hypothesis by correlating C. rodgersii population characteristics with respect to the East Australian Current (EAC), i.e. the chief vector for poleward larval dispersal, and reveal patterns of declining sea urchin age and abundance with increasing distance from this oceanic feature. Furthermore, C. rodgersii is generally limited to sites where average winter temperatures are warmer than the cold threshold for its larval development. Potential dispersal and physiological mechanisms defining the range extension appear to be strongly coupled to the EAC which has undergone recent poleward advance and resulted in coastal warming in eastern Tasmania. Predicted climate change conditions for this region will favour continued population expansion of C. rodgersii not only via atmospheric‐forced ocean warming, but also via ongoing intensification of the EAC driving continued poleward supply of larvae and heat.

Subfields: Ecology, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3a4335d04d82486347889dfa3261e6b3adb6fe0e

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Citations in the corpus

Climate-driven range changes in Tasmanian intertidal fauna (2010, background): “2007), and recent studies have shown southern range expansions for a sea urchin (Ling et al. 2009) and several fish species (Stuart-Smith et al.”
The Biogeography of marine invertebrate life histories. (2012, background): “Already, the range shifts of some planktotrophic species have been linked to climate change (Ling et al. 2009).”
Recovery of canopy-forming macroalgae following removal of the enigmatic grazing sea urchin Heliocidaris erythrogramma (2010, background): “…size of sea urchins include large recruitment events driven by environmental change (i.e. ‘bottom–up’ effects, e.g. Hart and Scheibling, 1988; Ling et al., 2008, 2009a) and changes in predator abundance (i.e. ‘top–down’ effects, e.g. Estes and Duggins, 1995; Shears and Babcock, 2002,…”
Long‐term shifts in abundance and distribution of a temperate fish fauna: a response to climate change and fishing practices (2011, background): “For example, biological responses to these changes have been recorded off the east coast of Tasmania for sea urchins (Ling et al., 2009) and shore crabs (Thresher et al.”
A holistic view of marine regime shifts (2015, background): “Using examples from this issue, in some temperate reefs modified ocean circulation has allowed supply and development of urchin larvae to kelp beds where, in the absence of effective predators (because of overfishing), urchin populations have subsequently exceeded critical thresholds of overgrazing,”
Climate change and disease: bleaching of a chemically defended seaweed (2011, background): “…of these environmental changes have already been observed, with range extensions of tropical fish into temperate waters (Booth & Beretta, 2002; Figuera & Booth, 2010) and sea urchins into Tasmania (Ling et al., 2009) and predictions for this region include continued, accelerated warming.”
Conserving potential coral reef refuges at high latitudes (2014, background): “…have already facilitated the poleward expansion of modern coral species groups in Japan, Florida and Australia (Precht & Aronson, 2004; Yamano et al., 2011; Baird et al., 2012), fish (Figueira & Booth, 2010), and for the urchin Centrostephanus rodgersii (Ling et al., 2009) in Australia.”
The 'Great Southern Reef': social, ecological and economic value of Australia's neglected kelp forests (2016, background): “Observed changes include expansion of a subtidal sea urchin (Ling et al. 2009), a range of intertidal invertebrates (Pitt et al. 2010), zooplankton (Johnson et al. 2011), and coastal fishes (Johnson et al. 2011; Last et al. 2011; Bennett et al. 2015a; Robinson et al. 2015).”