Ecosystem function WG Lead: Andrew Thurber, Oregon State University, USA. Email: athurber@coas.oregonstate.edu
Please contact Andrew if you wish to be an ACTIVE participant of this INDEEP WG.
MAIN ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS
CLIDEEP workshop and publications
During a four day meeting at Friday Harbor Laboratories, USA, 25 scientists from eight countries met to discuss which deep-sea habitats and functions will experience the greatest change over the coming century as a result of our changing climate. CLIDEEP was supported by a Norwegian Research Council grant to Dr. Andrew Sweetman (Norwegian Institute of Water Research) and co-convened by Dr. Sweetman and Drs. Craig Smith (University of Hawaii), Lisa Levin (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and Andrew Thurber (Oregon State University) in May 2012.
Challenge: how do we extrapolate the climate change scenarios for the atmosphere and surface ocean to the deep seafloor? To overcome this hurdle, Dr. Camilo Mora (University of Hawaii) has been working with climate modellers to predict the expected change on pH, O2, and temperature at the seafloor and changes in export production (i.e. changes in food supply from the surface) to these habitats. Dr. Mora has produced maps identifying those locations that will be most impacted by one or multiple stressors and is currently superimposing these stressors on known habitats and their respective functions.
Outcomes: two manuscripts are in various stages of preparation including an overview of the mechanistic underpinnings by which climate change may impact deep-sea function in addition to the global quantitative predictions of how the factors that drive deep-sea ecosystems and their biodiversity, production, and function will likely change.
