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Climate drives the geography of marine consumption by changing predator communities

M. Whalen,R. Whippo,J. Stachowicz,P. York,Erin Aiello,T. Alcoverro,A. Altieri,L. Benedetti‐Cecchi,C. Bertolini,Midoli Bresch,F. Bulleri,P. Carnell,S. Cimon,R. Connolly,M. Cusson,M. Diskin,Elrika D'Souza,A. Flores,F. Fodrie,A. Galloway,Leo Chan Gaskins,Olivia J. Graham,T. Hanley,C. J. Henderson,C. M. Hereu,M. Hessing‐Lewis,K. Hovel,Brent B. Hughes,A. Hughes,K. Hultgren,H. Jänes,Dean S. Janiak,Lane N. Johnston,P. Jorgensen,B. Kelaher,Claudia Kruschel,Brendan S. Lanham,Kun‐Seop Lee,J. Lefcheck,E. Lozano‐Álvarez,P. Macreadie,Zachary L. Monteith,Nessa E. O’Connor,A. Olds,J. O’Leary,C. Patrick,Óscar Pino,A. Poore,M. Rasheed,W. Raymond,Katrin Reiss,O. Rhoades,Max T Robinson,P. G. Ross,F. Rossi,T. Schlacher,J. Seemann,B. Silliman,D. Smee,M. Thiel,R. Unsworth,B. V. Van Tussenbroek,A. Vergés,Mallarie E. Yeager,B. Yednock,Shelby L. Ziegler,J. Duffy

Published 2020 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

ABSTRACT

Significance Consumption transfers energy and materials through food chains and fundamentally influences ecosystem productivity. Therefore, mapping the distribution of consumer feeding intensity is key to understanding how environmental changes influence biodiversity, with consequent effects on trophic transfer and top–down impacts through food webs. Our global comparison of standardized bait consumption in shallow coastal habitats finds a peak in feeding intensity away from the equator that is better explained by the presence of particular consumer families than by latitude or temperature. This study complements recent demonstrations that changes in biodiversity can have similar or larger impacts on ecological processes than those of climate. The global distribution of primary production and consumption by humans (fisheries) is well-documented, but we have no map linking the central ecological process of consumption within food webs to temperature and other ecological drivers. Using standardized assays that span 105° of latitude on four continents, we show that rates of bait consumption by generalist predators in shallow marine ecosystems are tightly linked to both temperature and the composition of consumer assemblages. Unexpectedly, rates of consumption peaked at midlatitudes (25 to 35°) in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres across both seagrass and unvegetated sediment habitats. This pattern contrasts with terrestrial systems, where biotic interactions reportedly weaken away from the equator, but it parallels an emerging pattern of a subtropical peak in marine biodiversity. The higher consumption at midlatitudes was closely related to the type of consumers present, which explained rates of consumption better than consumer density, biomass, species diversity, or habitat. Indeed, the apparent effect of temperature on consumption was mostly driven by temperature-associated turnover in consumer community composition. Our findings reinforce the key influence of climate warming on altered species composition and highlight its implications for the functioning of Earth’s ecosystems.

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