Deep demersal fish communities respond rapidly to warming in a frontal region between Arctic and Atlantic waters
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https://hdl.handle.net/10037/26463Date
2022-02-23Type
Journal articleTidsskriftartikkel
Peer reviewed
Author
Emblemsvåg, Margrete; Werner, Karl-Michael; Núñez-Riboni, Ismael; Frelat, Romain; Torp Christensen, Helle; Fock, Heino O.; Primicerio, RaulAbstract
The assessment of climate impact on marine communities dwelling deeper than the
well-studied shelf seas has been hampered by the lack of long-term data. For a long
time, the prevailing expectation has been that thermal stability in deep ocean layers
will delay ecosystem responses to warming. Few observational studies have challenged
this view and indicated that deep organisms can respond exceptionally fast to physical
change at the sea surface. To address the depth-specific impact of climate change, we
investigated spatio-temporal changes in fish community structure along a bathymetry
gradient of 150–1500 m between 1998 and 2016 in East Greenland. Here, the Arctic
East Greenland Current and the Atlantic Irminger Current meet and mix, representing
a sub-Arctic transition zone. We found the strongest signals of community reorganizations at depths between 350 and 1000 m and only weak responses in the shallowest
and deepest regions. Changes were in synchrony with atmospheric warming, loss in sea
ice and variability in physical sea surface conditions both within our study region and
North of the Denmark Strait. These results suggest that interannual variability and longterm climate trends of the larger ecoregion can rapidly affect fish communities down to
1000-m depth through atmospheric ocean coupling and food web interactions.
Publisher
WileyCitation
Emblemsvåg, Werner, Núñez-Riboni, Frelat, Torp Christensen, Fock, Primicerio. Deep demersal fish communities respond rapidly to warming in a frontal region between Arctic and Atlantic waters. Global Change Biology. 2022;28(9):2979-2990Metadata
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