Dr Amelia Curd1, Dr Mathieu Chevalier1, Mickaël Vasquez1, Dr Aurélien Boyé1, Dr Louise B. Firth2, Dr Martin P. Marzloff1, Dr. Lucy M. Bricheno3, Pr. Michael T. Burrows4, Dr. Laura E. Bush5, Céline Cordier1, Dr. Andrew J. Davies6,7, Dr. J.A. Mattias Green8, Pr. Stephen J. Hawkins2,9,10, Dr. Fernando P. Lima11,12, Dr. Claudia Meneghesso11,12,13, Dr. Nova Mieszkowska10,14, Dr. Rui Seabra11, Dr. Stanislas Dubois1
1Ifremer, DYNECO LEBCO, Plouzané, France, 2School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, UK, 3National Oceanography Centre, Joseph Proudman Building, 6 Brownlow Street, Liverpool, UK, 4Scottish Association for Marine Science, Scottish Marine Institute, Oban, UK, 5FUGRO GB Marine Limited, Gait 8, Research Park South, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK, 6Department of Biological Sciences, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, USA, 7Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, USA, 8School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University,, Bangor, UK, 9Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre Southampton, Southampton, UK, 10The Marine Biological Association of the UK, Plymouth, UK, 11CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Campus de Vairão, Vairão, Portugal, 12BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, Campus de Vairão, Vairão, Portugal, 13Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal, 14Department of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
Distributional shifts in species ranges provide critical evidence of ecological responses to climate change. Assessments of climate-driven changes typically focus on broad-scale range shifts (e.g. poleward or upward), with ecological consequences at regional and local scales commonly overlooked. While these changes are informative for species presenting continuous geographic ranges, many species have discontinuous distributions – both natural (e.g. mountain or coastal species) or human-induced (e.g. species inhabiting fragmented landscapes) – where within-range changes can be significant. Here, we use an ecosystem engineer species (Sabellaria alveolata) with a naturally fragmented distribution as a case study to assess climate-driven changes in within-range occupancy across its entire global distribution. To this end, we applied novel landscape ecology metrics to outputs from species distribution modelling (SDM). SDM predicted a 27.5% overall increase in the area of potentially suitable habitat under RCP 4.5 by 2050, which taken in isolation would have led to classify the species as a climate change winner. SDM further revealed that the latitudinal range is predicted to shrink because of decreased habitat suitability in the equatorward part of the range, not compensated by a poleward expansion. The use of landscape ecology metrics provided additional insights by identifying regions that are predicted to become increasingly fragmented in the future. This increased range fragmentation could have dramatic consequences for ecosystem structure and functioning at a local scale. Importantly, the proposed framework – which brings together SDM and landscape metrics – can be widely used to study currently overlooked climate-driven changes in species internal range structure, without requiring detailed empirical knowledge of the modelled species. This approach represents a step beyond predictive envelope approaches.
Presentation Slides – Amelia Curd
Biography:
Amelia is a marine ecologist at Ifremer. In 2020 she completed her PhD on the macroecology and global distribution of the honeycomb worm Sabellaria alveolata. She is the French delegate for two ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) working groups working on marine Invasive Alien Species. Her research now focuses on rocky, and urban, intertidal ecosystems.
