Climate change-driven cooling can kill marine megafauna at their distributional limits

Nicolas Lubitz (), Ryan Daly, Amy F. Smoothey, Patrick Vianello, Michael J. Roberts, David S. Schoeman, Marcus Sheaves, Paul D. Cowley, Laurent Dagorn, Fabien G. Forget, Marc Soria, Victor M. Peddemors, John D. Filmalter, Paul A. Butcher, Greg Brett and Adam Barnett
Additional contact information
Nicolas Lubitz: James Cook University
Ryan Daly: Oceanographic Research Institute
Amy F. Smoothey: Fisheries Research, Sydney Institute of Marine Science
Patrick Vianello: Nelson Mandela University
Michael J. Roberts: Nelson Mandela University
David S. Schoeman: University of the Sunshine Coast
Marcus Sheaves: James Cook University
Paul D. Cowley: South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB)
Laurent Dagorn: IRD
Fabien G. Forget: IRD
Marc Soria: IRD
Victor M. Peddemors: Fisheries Research, Sydney Institute of Marine Science
John D. Filmalter: South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB)
Paul A. Butcher: National Marine Science Centre
Greg Brett: Honorary Research Associate of Natural History East London Museum
Adam Barnett: James Cook University

Nature Climate Change, 2024, vol. 14, issue 5, 526-535

Abstract: Abstract The impacts on marine species from secular warming and heatwaves are well demonstrated; however, the impacts of extreme cold events are poorly understood. Here we link the death of organisms from 81 species to an intense cold upwelling event in the Agulhas Current, and show trends of increasing frequency and intensification of upwelling in the Agulhas Current and East Australian Current. Using electronic tagging, we illustrate the potential impacts of upwelling events on the movement behaviour of bull sharks Carcharhinus leucas, including alterations of migratory patterns and maintenance of shallower dive profiles when transiting through upwelling cells. Increasing upwelling could result in ‘bait and switch’ situations, where climate change expands subtropical species’ distribution, while simultaneously exposing climate migrants to an increased risk of cold-mortality events at poleward distributional limits. This shows the potential impacts of increased cold events, an understudied aspect of climate change research, and highlights the complexities of climate change effects on marine ecosystems.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01966-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:14:y:2024:i:5:d:10.1038_s41558-024-01966-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-024-01966-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().