Realized niche width of a brackish water submerged aquatic vegetation under current environmental conditions and projected influences of climate change

• Published in: Marine environmental research 2014-12, Vol.102, p.88-101
• Main Authors: Kotta, Jonne, Möller, Tiia, Orav-Kotta, Helen, Pärnoja, Merli
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Aquatic Organisms; Baltic Sea; Baltic States; Biological and medical sciences; Biota; Brackish; Brackish water ecosystems; Climate Change; Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change; Earth, ocean, space; Ecology; Ecosystem; Eutrophication; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Marine; Meteorology; Modelling; Models, Theoretical; Oceans and Seas; Plant Physiological Phenomena; Regression Analysis; Salinity; Sea water ecosystems; Seawater - chemistry; Soft bottom; Species distribution; Submerged; Submerged aquatic vegetation; Synecology; Temperature; Turbidity; Vegetation; Water temperature
• ISSN: 0141-1136; 1879-0291
• DOI: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2014.05.002

Little is known about how organisms might respond to multiple climate stressors and this lack of knowledge limits our ability to manage coastal ecosystems under contemporary climate change. Ecological models provide managers and decision makers with greater certainty that the systems affected by their decisions are accurately represented. In this study Boosted Regression Trees modelling was used to relate the cover of submerged aquatic vegetation to the abiotic environment in the brackish Baltic Sea. The analyses showed that the majority of the studied submerged aquatic species are most sensitive to changes in water temperature, current velocity and winter ice scour. Surprisingly, water salinity, turbidity and eutrophication have little impact on the distributional pattern of the studied biota. Both small and large scale environmental variability contributes to the variability of submerged aquatic vegetation. When modelling species distribution under the projected influences of climate change, all of the studied submerged aquatic species appear to be very resilient to a broad range of environmental perturbation and biomass gains are expected when seawater temperature increases. This is mainly because vegetation develops faster in spring and has a longer growing season under the projected climate change scenario. •There exists a large overlap in niche space among the higher plant species.•Water temperature, current velocity and ice scour are the key predictors.•Both small and large scale environmental variability is important in the models.•Higher plants benefit from future climate, mainly due to a longer growth period.