Journal Article

Global warming benefits the small in aquatic ecosystems

Daufresne, Martin, Sommer, U., Lengfellner, K., Hydrobiologie (UR HYAX), Partenaires IRSTEA

2009

Overview

Understanding the ecological impacts of climate change is a crucial challenge of the twenty-first century. There is a clear lack of general rules regarding the impacts of global warming on biota. Here, we present a metaanalysis of the effect of climate change on body size of ectothermic aquatic organisms (bacteria, phyto- and zooplankton, and fish) from the community to the individual level. Using long-term surveys, experimental data and published results, we show a significant increase in the proportion of small-sized species and young age classes and a decrease in size-at-age. These results are in accordance with the ecological rules dealing with the temperaturesize relationships (i.e., Bergmann's rule, James' rule and TemperatureSize Rule). Our study provides evidence that reduced body size is the third universal ecological response to global warming in aquatic systems besides the shift of species ranges toward higher altitudes and latitudes and the seasonal shifts in life cycle events

• Publisher: National Academy of Sciences,CCSD,National Acad Sciences
• Subject: age structure / altitude / Animals / Aquatic ecosystems / Aquatic environment / Aquatic organisms / bacteria / Bacteria - isolation & purification / Biological Sciences / Biota / Body Size / Climate change / Climate effects / Communities / Ecosystem / Environmental impact / Environmental Sciences / Female / fish / Fishes / Freshwater fishes / Global warming / Greenhouse Effect / latitude / Life cycles / Marine fishes / Meta-analysis / Organisms / Phytoplankton - isolation & purification / Population ecology / Population mean / Population size / Species / Studies / surveys / Zooplankton