Marine food web ecology
The general view on whether natural populations can respond to anthropogenic change is that many species will fail to adapt to rapid climate change effects. Marine species use various strategies to buffer themselves against anthropogenic environmental change. However, there is a large gap in knowledge since we do not know whether species from different trophic levels (i.e., primary producers, herbivores, mesopredators, and top-predators) are influenced by, and can respond to, environmental change similarly. Foundational consumer-stress models, like those by Menge and Sutherland (1976, 1987) argued that abiotic stress may have a greater influence on higher trophic levels compared to lower trophic levels, whereas lower trophic level species, on the other hand, are largely influenced by biotic stress. If this is true, it should lead to variation among species’ responses to environmental change, and in such cases, we would expect greater tolerance in response to abiotic stressors associated with climate change in higher trophic level species.
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A predictive understanding of how species from different trophic levels respond to changes associated with climate change has been demonstrated by this research. However, focusing solely on single stressor responses overlooks climate change's multifaceted nature, a comprehensive understanding of their collective responses to multiple stressors has been lacking. Our new pioneering research on climate change effects and ocean sustainability, follow up the previous study and focusing this time on the interactions between ocean acidification (OA) and ocean warming (OW) across marine trophic levels. Our research provides a comprehensive understanding of general patterns and interaction types among marine trophic levels in response to these stressors.
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