Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MarHot (Bridging experimental and modelling approaches to predict marine native and invasive hotspots under climate change)
Período documentado: 2021-01-01 hasta 2022-12-31
MarHot - Bridging experimental and modelling approaches to predict marine native and invasive hotspots under climate change
The amplitude and frequency of extreme events, such as marine heatwaves, are increasing with climate change in the European temperate coasts. As a consequence, macroalgae and seagrasses are shifting their ranges, which implies significant impacts on marine ecosystems. The loss of native foundational species will also open windows of opportunity for invasive species, a major threat to Europe's biodiversity that has social and economic impacts. However, our ability to predict the future distribution of marine habitat-forming species under climate change is yet limited.
Correlative species distribution models (SDMs) are useful tools to predict the future distribution of coastal canopy-forming species. Recently, physiological thermal limits obtained from mesocosm experiments have been combined with SDMs to produce more consistent predictions in the form of mechanistic or hybrid models. However, mechanistic models remain mostly untested and the existing approaches do not provide an efficient tool to produce multi-species mechanistic models suitable to identify hotspots of species at risk of extinction and hotspots for invasive macrophytes.
MarHot outputs will benefit society because it is a direct contribution to achieving the Development Goals and Biodiversity regulations adopted by the European Union. Finally, MarHot project has helped placing its researchers and the EU at the forefront of innovation in climate change research, paving the way for further progress in biodiversity conservation.
Objectives of MarHot have been to (i) provide an innovative framework to integrate physiological thermal limits into SDMs in order to anticipate future redistributions of marine coastal species, thanks to an interdisciplinary collaborative research and cutting-edge mesocosms set-ups provided by the host institutions; (ii) investigate innovative approaches to constrain SDM outputs with experimental evidence; (iii) explore multi-species range shifts in response of marine heatwaves. MarHot takes advantage of recent analytical tools to detect extreme thermal events and the increasing availability of global databases on thermal tolerance limits. The project will provide an analytical framework in open source software for analyses of coastal macrophyte hotspots under future scenarios of marine heatwaves. The scientific community will be able to use the developed tools to reproduce the analytical approach with other species.
MarHot has provided new avenues to the understanding of marine redistributions through a workflow facilitating the incorporation of unused variables related to temperature variability, while analyzing the distributions of coastal species. The use of metrics related to sea surface temperature variability to explain persistence and extinction of macroalgae populations is certainly innovative. In this project we argue that consideration of multiple thermal manifestations of climate change is needed to better understand local extirpations of habitat-forming species. Our study opens new avenues to the understanding of marine redistributions.
MarHot has also assessed the physiological responses of marine macrophytes to ocean warming and desiccation stress, using two sympatric algae with different cycles of immersion due to tides. This project’s experimental work has allowed us to obtain relevant physiological data to be integrated into species distribution models predictions in order to produce mechanistic or hybrid models.
The amplitude and frequency of extreme events, such as marine heatwaves, are increasing with climate change in the European temperate coasts. As a consequence, macroalgae and seagrasses are shifting their ranges, which implies significant impacts on marine ecosystems. The loss of native foundational species will also open windows of opportunity for invasive species, a major threat to Europe's biodiversity that has social and economic impacts. However, our ability to predict the future distribution of marine habitat-forming species under climate change is yet limited.
Correlative species distribution models (SDMs) are useful tools to predict the future distribution of coastal canopy-forming species. Recently, physiological thermal limits obtained from mesocosm experiments have been combined with SDMs to produce more consistent predictions in the form of mechanistic or hybrid models. However, mechanistic models remain mostly untested and the existing approaches do not provide an efficient tool to produce multi-species mechanistic models suitable to identify hotspots of species at risk of extinction and hotspots for invasive macrophytes.
MarHot outputs will benefit society because it is a direct contribution to achieving the Development Goals and Biodiversity regulations adopted by the European Union. Finally, MarHot project has helped placing its researchers and the EU at the forefront of innovation in climate change research, paving the way for further progress in biodiversity conservation.
Objectives of MarHot have been to (i) provide an innovative framework to integrate physiological thermal limits into SDMs in order to anticipate future redistributions of marine coastal species, thanks to an interdisciplinary collaborative research and cutting-edge mesocosms set-ups provided by the host institutions; (ii) investigate innovative approaches to constrain SDM outputs with experimental evidence; (iii) explore multi-species range shifts in response of marine heatwaves. MarHot takes advantage of recent analytical tools to detect extreme thermal events and the increasing availability of global databases on thermal tolerance limits. The project will provide an analytical framework in open source software for analyses of coastal macrophyte hotspots under future scenarios of marine heatwaves. The scientific community will be able to use the developed tools to reproduce the analytical approach with other species.
MarHot has provided new avenues to the understanding of marine redistributions through a workflow facilitating the incorporation of unused variables related to temperature variability, while analyzing the distributions of coastal species. The use of metrics related to sea surface temperature variability to explain persistence and extinction of macroalgae populations is certainly innovative. In this project we argue that consideration of multiple thermal manifestations of climate change is needed to better understand local extirpations of habitat-forming species. Our study opens new avenues to the understanding of marine redistributions.
MarHot has also assessed the physiological responses of marine macrophytes to ocean warming and desiccation stress, using two sympatric algae with different cycles of immersion due to tides. This project’s experimental work has allowed us to obtain relevant physiological data to be integrated into species distribution models predictions in order to produce mechanistic or hybrid models.
MarHot collected presence and absence data over time of six macroalgae along the North Coast of the Iberian Peninsula to analyze the persistence and extinction of native populations at their southernmost distributional limits. Marine heatwaves were detected for the study area using sea surface temperature data from the NOAA 1/4° daily Optimum Interpolation SST. In addition, sea surface temperature variability measures were also calculated. This will render a manuscript identifying associations between variables related to gradual warming and temporal variability of sea surface temperature (SST) and the persistence and extirpation of macroalgae populations over two survey periods in the Northern Spanish coast.
Samples of macroalgae species were collected from two populations: Scotland and Portugal. Mesocosms experiments were developed to investigate the thermal thresholds of the two species.
MarHot will provide two scientific publications led by the Fellow. During MarHot, an undergrad student has been supervised to develop a final degree project. The project results have been disseminated to the scientific community through a Seminar at the “Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales” (available online), two oral talks at international congresses, one talk at a national congress, and one workshop teaching aquatic species distribution modelling. The actions were communicated to undergrad students by two activities at URJC, and an exhibition of scientific-technological innovation in the Community of Madrid (“Madrid es Ciencia”). MarHot produced a video to be exhibited in “Madrid es Ciencia” in which MarHot activities were shown together with other activities from the Area of Biodiversity and Conservation.
Samples of macroalgae species were collected from two populations: Scotland and Portugal. Mesocosms experiments were developed to investigate the thermal thresholds of the two species.
MarHot will provide two scientific publications led by the Fellow. During MarHot, an undergrad student has been supervised to develop a final degree project. The project results have been disseminated to the scientific community through a Seminar at the “Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales” (available online), two oral talks at international congresses, one talk at a national congress, and one workshop teaching aquatic species distribution modelling. The actions were communicated to undergrad students by two activities at URJC, and an exhibition of scientific-technological innovation in the Community of Madrid (“Madrid es Ciencia”). MarHot produced a video to be exhibited in “Madrid es Ciencia” in which MarHot activities were shown together with other activities from the Area of Biodiversity and Conservation.
The experimental, analytical and computational knowledge achieved will have a positive impact on the European society because it serves the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy to protect species and habitats and helps stop the loss of global biodiversity. MarHot has allowed the Fellow to acquire an expertise that will contribute to future studies to understand the impacts of climate change, in line with the challenges of the next Horizon Europe Framework.
The Fellow has transferred knowledge to students and researchers through a course on “Aquatic Species Distribution Modelling”, supervising a Final Degree project and communicating MarHot actions through three events at the Host institution. Mahthot actions have also been communicated to students and the general public through “Madrid es Ciencia” event and a video.
The MarHot project is still generating new knowledge and open access software. Besides, MarHot has allowed the Fellow to originate two new scientific projects on the subject and increase her teaching skills.
The Fellow has transferred knowledge to students and researchers through a course on “Aquatic Species Distribution Modelling”, supervising a Final Degree project and communicating MarHot actions through three events at the Host institution. Mahthot actions have also been communicated to students and the general public through “Madrid es Ciencia” event and a video.
The MarHot project is still generating new knowledge and open access software. Besides, MarHot has allowed the Fellow to originate two new scientific projects on the subject and increase her teaching skills.