The effect of single versus successive warm summers on an intertidal community

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Authors

Amelia Virginia Hesketh, Cassandra Konecny, Sandra Emry, Christopher D. G. Harley

Abstract

To accurately predict how organisms and ecological communities will respond to future conditions caused by climate change, we must consider the temporal dimension of environmental stressors, including the effects of repeated exposures to stress. We performed a two-year passive warming experiment in coastal British Columbia to explore the response of intertidal communities to single and successive warm summers. Elevated summertime temperatures tended to reduce the abundance of barnacles and grazers, algal cover, and alpha diversity compared to ambient temperatures, and both contemporaneous and persistent effects of warming were detected. While elevated summer temperatures appeared to have direct effects on organism survival and growth, the persistent effects of warming through time and differences in community structure between treatments were likely mediated by differences in foundation species (barnacle) abundance between treatments. Unexpectedly, the effects of thermal stress in year two were rarely dependent on whether there had been thermal stress in year one. Our study suggests that, while barnacle beds can recover from single warm summers, recurring thermal stress will result in a more depauperate, less diverse community over time, particularly if foundation species are negatively affected.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32942/X2FP5F

Subjects

Life Sciences

Keywords

barnacles, climate change, foundation species, Community, Diversity, Heatwaves, intertidal zone, Mortality, Warming

Dates

Published: 2024-05-21 09:07

Last Updated: 2024-06-17 23:52

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License

CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Language:
English

Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Data and Code Availability Statement:
Data and code are not publicly available, but will be made available once this manuscript is accepted for publication.