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Climate change effects on Antarctic benthos: a spatially explicit model approach

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Abstract

The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the regions on the Earth with the clearest evidence of recent and fast air warming. This air temperature rise has caused massive glacier retreat leading to an increased influx of glacier meltwater which entails hydrological changes in coastal waters, increasing sediment input and ice-scouring impact regime. It has been hypothesized that an increase of sediment load due to glacier retreat resulted in a remarkable benthic community shift in Potter Cove, a small inlet of the South Shetland Islands. In order to test this hypothesis, we developed an explicit spatial model to explore the link between sedimentation and ice-scouring increase upon four of the most conspicuous benthic species. This is a valuable novel approach since disturbances are strongly dependent of the space. The model takes into account sediment and population dynamics with Lotka-Volterra competition, a sediment-dependent mortality term and a randomized ice-scouring biomass removal. With the developed algorithm, and using a MATLAB environment, numerical simulations for scenarios with different sedimentation and ice-impact rates were undertaken in order to evaluate the effect of this phenomenon on biological dynamics. Comparing simulation results with biological data, the model not only recreates the spatial community distribution pattern but also seems to be able to recreate the shifts in abundance under sedimentation enhancement, pointing out its importance as a structuring factor of polar benthic communities. Considering the challenges of Antarctic field work, this model represents a powerful tool for assessing, understanding, and predicting the effects of climate change on threatened Antarctic coastal ecosystems.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Carlini (former Jubany)–Dallmann staff for their support. Funding: Logistic and financial support were provided by Instituto Antártico Argentino, CONICET, FONCyT (Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica), SECyT-UNC (Secretaría de Ciencia y Tecnología–UNC), DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), and EU (European Union) via grants PICTO-DNA N° 119 and 36323, DFG project no. BR 775/25-1, IMCOAST (impact of climate induced glacial melting on marine coastal systems in the western Antarctic Peninsula region), IMCONet [FP7 IRSES (International Research Staff Exchange Scheme), action no. 319718], and PADI Foundation Grant 11234.

Author attribution

LT: developed the model and parameters, carried out analyses, and wrote the original manuscript

PCCT: developed the model program and writing

FM: developed the model, discussed the results and writing.

JFCAM: developed the model program and writing.

RS: designed the project discussed the results and writing.

All authors discussed the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marine Ecology, Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal (CONICET-UNC), Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales,., Av. Vélez Sarsfield 299, Córdoba, 5000, Argentina

    Luciana Torre & Ricardo Sahade

  2. Universidad del Quindío, Quindío, Colombia

    Paulo C. Carmona Tabares

  3. Instituto de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Los Polvorines, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Fernando Momo

  4. INEDES, Universidad Nacional de Luján - CONICET, Luján, Argentina

    Fernando Momo

  5. IMECC, UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil

    João F. C. A. Meyer

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  1. Luciana Torre
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  2. Paulo C. Carmona Tabares
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Correspondence to Luciana Torre.

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Torre, L., Tabares, P.C.C., Momo, F. et al. Climate change effects on Antarctic benthos: a spatially explicit model approach. Climatic Change 141, 733–746 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-1915-2

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