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Albouy, C., Velez, L., Coll, M., Colloca, F., Le Loc'h, F., Mouillot, D., et al. (2014). From projected species distribution to food-web structure under climate change. Global Change Biology, 20(3), 730–741.
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Amelineau, F., Bonnet, D., Heitz, O., Mortreux, V., Harding, A. M. A., Karnovsky, N., et al. (2016). Microplastic pollution in the Greenland Sea: Background levels and selective contamination of planktivorous diving seabirds. Environ. Pollut., 219, 1131–1139.
Résumé: Microplastics have been reported everywhere around the globe. With very limited human activities, the Arctic is distant from major sources of microplastics. However, microplastic ingestions have been found in several Arctic marine predators, confirming their presence in this region. Nonetheless, existing information for this area remains scarce, thus there is an urgent need to quantify the contamination of Arctic marine waters. In this context, we studied microplastic abundance and composition within the zooplankton community off East Greenland. For the same area, we concurrently evaluated microplastic contamination of little auks (Alle alle), an Arctic seabird feeding on zooplankton while diving between 0 and 50 m. The study took place off East Greenland in July 2005 and 2014, under strongly contrasted sea-ice conditions. Among all samples, 97.2% of the debris found were filaments. Despite the remoteness of our study area, microplastic abundances were comparable to those of other oceans, with 0.99 +/- 0.62 m(-3) in the presence of sea-ice (2005), and 2.38 +/- 1.11 m(-3) in the nearby absence of sea-ice (2014). Microplastic rise between 2005 and 2014 might be linked to an increase in plastic production worldwide or to lower sea -ice extents in 2014, as sea-ice can represent a sink for microplastic particles, which are subsequently released to the water column upon melting. Crucially, all birds had eaten plastic filaments, and they collected high levels of microplastics compared to background levels with 9.99 and 8.99 pieces per chick meal in 2005 and 2014, respectively. Importantly, we also demonstrated that little auks took more often light colored microplastics, rather than darker ones, strongly suggesting an active contamination with birds mistaking microplastics for their natural prey. Overall, our study stresses the great vulnerability of Arctic marine species to microplastic pollution in a warming Arctic, where sea-ice melting is expected to release vast volumes of trapped debris. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Araújo Abrantes de Figueiredo, G. G., Schwamborn, R., Bertrand, A., Munaron, J. - M., & Le Loc'h, F. (2020). Body size and stable isotope composition of zooplankton in the western tropical Atlantic. J. Mar. Syst., 212, 103449.
Résumé: Size-based approaches are paramount tools for the study of marine food webs. Here, we investigated the relationship between zooplankton body size, stable isotope composition and trophic level (TL) along a large-scale onshore-offshore gradient in the western tropical Atlantic. Samples were obtained on the Brazilian continental shelf, slope and in oceanic waters (off Fernando de Noronha archipelago and Rocas Atoll) in September and October 2015. Zooplankton was sieved into five size fractions. Zooplankton was dominated by copepods, except for the largest (> 2000 mu m) size fraction, that showed a high biovolume of chaetognaths, decapods, and fish larvae. Maximum zooplankton abundance and biovolume was found at the continental slope. POM showed consistently lower delta C-13 than zooplankton, indicating a selective use of C-13-rich primary food sources by zooplankton. Particulate organic matter (POM) was more C-13-enriched in shelf areas (average: -22.8, -23.6 and -24.3% at the shelf, slope and oceanic islands, respectively), probably due to the higher abundance of diatoms nearshore. POM had delta N-15 values between 2.5 and 6.9% (average: 4.0, 4.9 and 4.2% at the shelf, slope and oceanic islands, respectively). Zooplankton delta N-15 and TL increased with body size. The delta N-15 of the 200-500 mu m size fraction was used as baseline for TL estimation. Oceanic areas (average baseline delta N-15 = 5.8% +/- 0.52, n = 14) showed a higher baseline delta N-15 than the shelf (average = 3.9% +/- 0.69, n = 9) and the slope areas (average = 3.1% +/- 0.93, n = 9). In spite of differing baselines, the delta N-15 data produced a consistent pattern of log-linear increase in TL with increasing size, in all areas. The choice of input trophic enrichment factor (TEF) values only slightly changed the log10 (body size) vs TL slopes, but this choice had a considerable effect on the estimates of predator/prey size ratio (PPSR) and predator/prey mass ratio (PPMR). Using a TEF above 2.3 leads to unrealistic PPSR and PPMR estimates. Overall average slope was 0.59 +/- 0.08 TL mu m(-1) with TEF = 2.3 and 0.42 +/- 0.07 TL mu m(-1) with TEF = 3.2.
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Ayon, P., Swartzman, G., Espinoza, P., & Bertrand, A. (2011). Long-term changes in zooplankton size distribution in the Peruvian Humboldt Current System : conditions favouring sardine or anchovy. Marine Ecology. Progress Series, 422, 211–222.
Résumé: Changes in the size distribution of zooplankton in the Humboldt Current System have been hypothesized to underlie observed changes in sardine and anchovy populations, the dominant pelagic fish species. To examine this hypothesis, the size distribution of over 15 000 zooplankton data samples collected since the 1960s was qualitatively determined. Dominance of each size group of zooplankton (small, medium and large) and of euphausiids was modelled using generalized additive models as a function of year, latitude, time of day, distance from the 200 m isobath (a surrogate for on-shelf versus off-shelf), sea surface temperature and salinity. The temporal (yr) pattern for euphausiid dominance was highly cross-correlated (i.e. was in phase) with the time series for estimated biomass of anchovy, and small zooplankton dominance with that for estimated sardine biomass. This supports the focal hypothesis based on feeding-energetic experiments, which showed energetic advantages to sardine filter feeding on smaller zooplankton and to anchovy bite feeding on larger copepods and euphausiids. Although euphausiids predominate offshore from the shelf break, anchovy biomass is generally highest on the shelf, suggesting a possible mismatch between anchovy feeding and euphausiid dominance. However, evidence concerning the offshore expansion of the anchovy range in cooler conditions, where both anchovy and euphausiids predominate, somewhat alleviates this apparent contradiction. A strong diel component to euphausiids and large zooplankton indicated diel migration for these zooplankton groups. That anchovy will preferentially eat euphausiids when they are more available (i.e. during the night and offshore) is supported by anchovy diet data.
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Barneche, D. R., Rezende, E. L., Parravicini, V., Maire, E., Edgar, G. J., Stuart-Smith, R. D., et al. (2019). Body size, reef area and temperature predict global reef-fish species richness across spatial scales. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 28(3), 315–327.
Résumé: Aim To investigate biotic and abiotic correlates of reef-fish species richness across multiple spatial scales. Location Tropical reefs around the globe, including 485 sites in 109 sub-provinces spread across 14 biogeographic provinces. Time period Present. Major taxa studied 2,523 species of reef fish. Methods We compiled a database encompassing 13,050 visual transects. We used hierarchical linear Bayesian models to investigate whether fish body size, reef area, isolation, temperature, and anthropogenic impacts correlate with reef-fish species richness at each spatial scale (i.e., sites, sub-provinces, provinces). Richness was estimated using coverage-based rarefaction. We also tested whether species packing (i.e., transect-level species richness/m(2)) is correlated with province-level richness. Results Body size had the strongest effect on species richness across all three spatial scales. Reef area and temperature were both positively correlated with richness at all spatial scales. At the site scale only, richness decreased with reef isolation. Species richness was not correlated with proxies of human impacts. Species packing was correlated with species richness at the province level following a sub-linear power function. Province-level differences in species richness were also mirrored by patterns of body size distribution at the site scale. Species-rich provinces exhibited heterogeneous assemblages of small-bodied species with small range sizes, whereas species-poor provinces encompassed homogeneous assemblages composed by larger species with greater dispersal capacity. Main conclusions Our findings suggest that body size distribution, reef area and temperature are major predictors of species richness and accumulation across scales, consistent with recent theories linking home range to species-area relationships as well as metabolic effects on speciation rates. Based on our results, we hypothesize that in less diverse areas, species are larger and likely more dispersive, leading to larger range sizes and less turnover between sites. Our results indicate that changes in province-level (i.e., regional) richness should leave a tractable fingerprint in local assemblages, and that detailed studies on local-scale assemblage composition may be informative of responses occurring at larger scales.
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