OCEAN CLIMATE CHANGE, PHYTOPLANKTON COMMUNITY RESPONSES, AND HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS: A FORMIDABLE PREDICTIVE CHALLENGE 1

By G. Hallegraeff. 2010

936 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Prediction of the impact of global climate change on marine HABs is fraught with difficulties. However, we can learn important lessons from the fossil record of dinoflagellate cysts; long‐term monitoring programs, such as the Continuous Plankton Recorder surveys; and short‐term phytoplankton community responses to El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) episodes. Increasing temperature, enhanced surface stratification, alteration of ocean currents, intensification or weakening of local nutrient upwelling, stimulation of photosynthesis by elevated CO2, reduced calcification through ocean acidification (“the other CO2 problem”), and heavy precipitation and storm events causing changes in land runoff and micronutrient availability may all produce contradictory species‐ or even strain‐specific responses. Complex factor interactions exist, and simulated ecophysiological laboratory experiments rarely allow for sufficient acclimation and rarely take into account physiological plasticity and genetic strain diversity. We can expect: (i) range expansion of warm‐water species at the expense of cold‐water species, which are driven poleward; (ii) species‐specific changes in the abundance and seasonal window of growth of HAB taxa; (iii) earlier timing of peak production of some phytoplankton; and (iv) secondary effects for marine food webs, notably when individual zooplankton and fish grazers are differentially impacted (“match‐mismatch”) by climate change. Some species of harmful algae (e.g., toxic dinoflagellates benefitting from land runoff and/or water column stratification, tropical benthic dinoflagellates responding to increased water temperatures and coral reef disturbance) may become more successful, while others may diminish in areas currently impacted. Our limited understanding of marine ecosystem responses to multifactorial physicochemical climate drivers as well as our poor knowledge of the potential of marine microalgae to adapt genetically and phenotypically to the unprecedented pace of current climate change are emphasized. The greatest problems for human society will be caused by being unprepared for significant range expansions or the increase of algal biotoxin problems in currently poorly monitored areas, thus calling for increased vigilance in seafood‐biotoxin and HAB monitoring programs. Changes in phytoplankton communities provide a sensitive early warning for climate‐driven perturbations to marine ecosystems.

Subfields: Ecology, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5be23942fbbd7da7987527fd355318dc042fd2c8

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In Ecology

1. Fabrice Not
2. Daniel Vaulot
3. S. Ling
4. D. Hutchins
5. P. Glibert
6. David A. Caron
7. G. Edgar
8. Neville Barrett

In Oceanography

1. Raphael M. Kudela
2. C. Gobler
3. Fabrice Not
4. P. Glibert
5. D. Hutchins
6. S. Ling
7. Daniel Vaulot
8. David A. Caron

Citations in the corpus

• Harmful dinoflagellate blooms caused by Cochlodinium sp.: Global expansion and ecological strategies facilitating bloom formation (2012, background): “, 2008), ballast water transport (Smayda, 2007), or climate change (Hallegraeff, 2010).”
• A conceptual model of annual Ostreopsis cf. ovata blooms in the northern Adriatic Sea based on the synergic effects of hydrodynamics, temperature, and the N:P ratio of water column nutrients (2015, background): “For example, Parsons and Preskitt (2007) found that Ostreopsis sp.1 abundance was positively correlated with nutrient availability (nitrate (NO 3 ), nitrite (NO 2 ), phosphate (PO 3 4 ), and silicate (Si(OH)4)) concentrations in the waters surrounding Hawaii, while Cohu et al. (2013) reported that P”
• Diversity and Ecology of Eukaryotic Marine Phytoplankton (2012, background): “Finally, certain dinoflagellates, including some toxin-producing species, can form large blooms (‘red tides’) that can negatively affect economic activities in coastal areas (Hallegraeff, 2003, 2010) (Fig.”
• Climate change cascades: Shifts in oceanography, species' ranges and subtidal marine community dynamics in eastern Tasmania (2011, background): “scintillans from Sydney to Cairns on the east coast of Australia, and to Port Esperance on the west coast of Australia, since 2005 (Hallegraeff, 2010) is consistent with the epidemiological spread of an invasive species aided by anthropogenic vectors, and is unlikely to reflect effects of climate ch”
• Community ecology in a warming world: The influence of temperature on interspecific interactions in marine systems (2011, background): “For example, global warming is facilitating the poleward spread of many harmful algal bloom species, creating risks for wildlife and human health in previously unimpacted areas in both hemispheres (Hallegraeff, 2010).”
• The impact of global climate change on genetic diversity within populations and species (2013, background): “Details on phenotypic plasticity are poorly known for many groups of organisms, particularly for diverse biota that are difficult to work with experimentally, for example, many marine species (Hallegraeff 2010).”
• The effects of changing climate on microzooplankton grazing and community structure: drivers, predictions and knowledge gaps (2013, background): “The geographical distributions of some plankton species including copepods (Richardson, 2008) and dinoflagellates (Hallegraeff, 2010) are undergoing poleward migrations as a consequence of ocean warming.”