Climate Impact on Plankton Ecosystems in the Northeast Atlantic
Top Cited Papers
- 10 September 2004
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 305 (5690) , 1609-1612
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1100958
Abstract
It is now widely accepted that global warming is occurring, yet its effects on the world's largest ecosystem, the marine pelagic realm, are largely unknown. We show that sea surface warming in the Northeast Atlantic is accompanied by increasing phytoplankton abundance in cooler regions and decreasing phytoplankton abundance in warmer regions. This impact propagates up the food web (bottom-up control) through copepod herbivores to zooplankton carnivores because of tight trophic coupling. Future warming is therefore likely to alter the spatial distribution of primary and secondary pelagic production, affecting ecosystem services and placing additional stress on already-depleted fish and mammal populations.Keywords
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