Abstract:
Plankton communities are particularly sensitive to climate change because they are often spatially confined, have limited abilities to disperse as environmental conditions change, are strongly size-structured and dominated by ectotherms, their activity and metabolism depends on temperature and other climatic factors, and their habitats are already exposed to numerous anthropogenic stressors. Here, we used DNA metabarcoding to quantify the responses of plankton diversity and community composition to decades of anthropogenic warming. Plankton samples were collected from five lakes continually heated for six decades (by warm water discharge from power plants, “warm lakes”) and from five adjacent unheated “control” lakes. Temperature differences between the warm and control lakes are 3-4°C and correspond with climate change predictions for the end of the 21st century. We initially predicted that plankton communities would experience the greatest negative effects of anthropogenic warming during summer and winter, when temperatures reach their yearly maximum and minimum, respectively, and species are close to their maximum thermal and cold tolerance limits. Instead, we found strong positive effects of warming on plankton diversity during summer and winter. We found more seasonally distinct communities in the warm lakes and more seasonal overlapping communities in the control lakes. Our results are more consistent with the hypothesis that the impact of climate change on sensitive organisms or organisms that live in extreme climatic conditions are expected to be felt earlier and stronger.
Speaker: Dr. Kingsly C. Beng
Affiliation:Department of Ecosystem Research, Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin Germany
Time: May. 18, 2021
Venue: The Conference Hall in Xishuangbanna Headquarter
The 101 meeting room in Kunming Division (video conference)
Link链接: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1iCb-w0XLxcpBWsF6ddRsSg 提取码: pdb7
