Jessica Moffitt1, Gert-Jan Jeunen2, Sara Ferreira2, Neil Gemmell2, Crid Fraser1, David Barnes3, Lloyd Peck, Gail Ashton3, Miles Lamare1
1Department of Marine Science, The University of Otago, , , 2Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, , , 3British Antarctic Survey, ,
Climate change is significantly contributing to important changes in marine biodiversity, both locally and globally, threatening key ecosystem functioning. To better understand the ecological consequences of ocean warming on marine ecosystems, manipulation experiments must strive for ecological relevance. Our research aims to assess the response of benthic marine communities to in situ warming, without eliminating the impact of natural variation. Sixteen settlement panels were deployed in the Otago Harbour, Dunedin, New Zealand, with four panels left at ambient temperature, four panels that experienced a simulated heat wave, four panels heated to +1°C (temperature equivalent to 2050) and four panels heated to +2°C (temperature equivalent to 2100). After a deployment time of 91 days, all settlement panels were photographed for morphological identification of the benthic community. Afterwards, the community was scraped of the settlement panels and subjected to DNA extraction and a COI metabarcoding analysis. Providing novel insight into how communities respond to warming under natural conditions allows us to better address the broader research question: How will climate change impact the dynamics of benthic communities, through changes in growth, survival, competition, and physiological tolerance of species under warming. Based on the subset of data we have analysed to date, community assemblage varies significantly among temperature treatments, with reductions in biodiversity and percentage cover associated with near-future warming sea temperatures.
Biography:
Jessica is a PhD student from the University of Otago,