Impacts of ocean warming on kelp forest ecosystems.

Kelp forests represent some of the most diverse and productive habitats on Earth, and provide a range of ecosystem goods and services on which human populations depend. As the distribution and ecophysiology of kelp species is strongly influenced by temperature, recent warming trends in many regions have been linked with concurrent changes in kelp populations, communities and ecosystems. Over the past decade, the number of reports of ocean warming impacts on kelp forests has risen sharply. Here, I synthesise recent studies to highlight general patterns and trends. While kelp responses to climate change vary greatly between ocean basins, regions and species, there is compelling evidence to show that ocean warming poses an unequivocal threat to the persistence and integrity of kelp forest ecosystems in coming decades. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  New Phytologist

• Publication date

  2019-09-04

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1111/nph.16107PMID 31400287
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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