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. 2021 May 14;11(1):10339.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-89192-6.

Potential changes in the connectivity of marine protected areas driven by extreme ocean warming

Luciana Shigihara Lima  1 , Douglas Francisco Marcolino Gherardi  2 , Luciano Ponzi Pezzi  2 , Leilane Gonçalves Dos Passos  3   4 , Clarissa Akemi Kajiya Endo  5   6 , Juan Pablo Quimbayo  7
Affiliations

Potential changes in the connectivity of marine protected areas driven by extreme ocean warming

Luciana Shigihara Lima et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Projected future climate scenarios anticipate a warmer tropical ocean and changes in surface currents that will likely influence the survival of marine organisms and the connectivity of marine protected areas (MPAs) networks. We simulated the regional effects of climate change on the demographic connectivity of parrotfishes in nine MPAs in the South Atlantic through downscaling of the HadGEM2-ES Earth System Model running the RCP 8.5 greenhouse gas trajectory. Results indicate a tropicalization scenario over the tropical southwest Atlantic following an increase of sea surface temperature (SST) between 1.8 and 4.5 °C and changes in mean surface currents between - 0.6 to 0.5 m s-1 relative to present conditions. High mortality rates will reduce demographic connectivity and increase the isolation of oceanic islands. The simulation of organismal response to ocean warming shows that acclimation can significantly improve (p < 0.001) particle survival, promoting connectivity and tropicalization of MPAs, with potential impacts on their functional integrity and long-term resilience.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Differences between future (RCP8.5, 2092–2099) and historic (1997–2004) simulations for SST and current magnitude averaged for the ocean upper 100 m layer. (a) Summer (JFM) and (b) Winter (JAS) for SST (°C); larger differences of temperature between simulations are shown in yellow tones and smaller differences in purple tones. (c) Summer (JFM) and (d) Winter (JAS) for current magnitude (m s−1); red tones indicate current strengthening and blue tones indicate current weakening. Black dots represent MPA locations: (1) São Pedro e São Paulo Archipelago (SPSP); (2) Manuel Luís (ML); (3) Fernando de Noronha Archipelago (FN); (4) Atol das Rocas (AR); (5) Recifes de Corais (RC); (6) Costa dos Corais (CC); (7) Abrolhos (AB); (8) Martim Vaz e Trindade Archipelago (TR); and (9) Arraial do Cabo and Cabo Frio region (CF). Created with Matlab R2019a (www.mathworks.com) and QGIS-3.4 (https://www.qgis.org).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Boxplots of the average distances travelled by larvae for the summer (a) and winter (b) experiments for historical (2008–2015) (dark blue) and RCP 8.5 (2092–2099), considering non acclimated (+ 0 °C) (light blue), and acclimated (+ 3 °C) (turquoise) Sparisoma eggs and larvae. Red crosses represent the outliers of boxplots. Spawning (MPA) sites are: São Pedro and São Paulo Archipelago (SPSP), Parcel do Manuel Luis (ML), Fernando de Noronha Archipelago (FN), Atol das Rocas (AR), Recife dos Corais (RC), Costa dos Corais (CC), Abrolhos (AB), Trindade and Martim Vaz islands (TR), and Cabo Frio (CF). Created with Matlab R2019a (www.mathworks.com).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Proportion of particles spawned in each MPA that were alive or dead by hypothermia, hyperthermia or advected out of the domain at the end of simulations. (a) summer and (b) winter non-acclimated simulations (thermal tolerance between 24 and 30 °C); (c) summer and (d) winter acclimated simulations (thermal tolerance between 24 and 33 °C). Created with Matlab R2019a (www.mathworks.com).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Seasonal Transition Probability Matrices (TPM) between source and recipient MPAs representing their demographic connectivity. Values along the diagonal black line indicate the probability of local retention of each MPA. Summer and winter connectivity are shown for non-acclimated (a,b) and acclimated (c,d) climate change simulations. Created with Matlab R2019a (www.mathworks.com).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Spatial distribution of total surviving larvae during all experiments. (a) Summer and (b) winter based on present-day simulation (2008 to 2015). (c) Summer and (d) winter for RCP 8.5 (2092 to 2100) considering present-day thermal tolerance. (e) Summer and (f) winter considering acclimation of + 3 °C in RCP 8.5 scenario. Warm colours represent regions with the highest density of larvae along the simulations. Black dots represent MPA locations as in Fig. 1. Created with Matlab R2019a (www.mathworks.com) and QGIS-3.4 (https://www.qgis.org).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Climate-change induced tropicalization of subtropical and temperate reefs. Schematic representation of the projected changes in reef ecosystems of the western south Atlantic (first column) caused by tropicalization. The second and third columns depict the present-day higher biomass of herbivore reef fish in the tropics and higher macroalgae and turf algae biomass in the subtropic and temperate sites. The future climate change scenario is depicted in the fourth column with an increase of algal cover in tropical reefs as a response to greater mortality of grazers and reduced grazing pressure. Subtropical to temperate reefs will display higher grazer fish biomass and lower dominance of macroalgae. Created with Adobe Illustrator-2020 (https://www.adobe.com/).
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