Earth & Environment - Posted by Sylvia Wright-UC Davis on Thursday, October 14, 2010 11:26 - 5 Comments 
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Aliens pushing ocean natives out
As ocean temperatures continue to increase, native species will decrease in abundance, and introduced species are likely to increase. (Credit: Cascade Sorte,UC Davis)
UC DAVIS (US) — When oceans warm, invasive animals move in, threatening and crowding out native species, according to a new study.
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Marine biologists have monitored plant and animal life in the eastern Pacific fishing harbor of Bodega Bay, California for 50 years.
In that time, water temperatures have climbed more than 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and there are now twice as many nonnative species as there are natives, says Susan Williams, professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California at Davis.
Researchers recently studied “fouling organisms”—the squishy or prickly creatures that live on rocks, docks, boat hulls, seawater pipelines, and shellfish farms to better understand what continued warming might mean for saltwater communities.
Bryozoans (also called moss animals) and tunicates (sea squirts) were taken from Bodega Bay to the lab, where their tolerance to higher water temperatures predicted by climate scientists was tested.
“We determined that introduced species tolerated significantly higher temperatures than natives,” Williams says.
“Our results strongly suggest that, as ocean temperatures continue to increase, native species in this system will decrease in abundance, whereas introduced species are likely to increase.”
The research was published in the August issue of Ecology and online in Oikos. The American Association of University Women, the California Ocean Protection Council, and the National Science Foundation provided funding.
More news from UC Davis: http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/
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5 Comments
Diane
@Dave: Yes, this type of evolution it is more or less a natural process, but the loss of diversity is the biggest shame.
Jill
Question : are the native species (few, some, most) moving to cooler temperatures as well?
Cascade
Good question, Jill. The answer is that many marine species are shifting their ranges to the north (you might be interested in the summary of another paper at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2009.00519.x/abstract). However no one, as far as I know, is tracking shifts in the particular native species included in this study.
Jill
Interesting article. I see what you mean. Most people studying these have looked at seasonal shifts in population or their effect as invaders themselves. I looked at the article Long-term changes in pelagic tunicates of the California Current Deep-Sea Research II 50 (2003) 2473–2498 but that covered only spring populations over a 50 year period and only over about 250 miles of coastline. Sort of related though.
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