Evidence For The Impact Of Climate Change On Deep-sea Biodiversity

In the forthcoming issue of Ecology Letters, Danovaro, Dell'Anno and Pusceddu demonstrate that an extensive climate anomaly, which occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean, caused a significant deep-sea biodiversity change. These results indicate that temperature shifts of 0.05-0.1 °C in the deep sea are sufficient to induce significant changes in species richness and functional diversity.

They conclude that deep-sea fauna is highly vulnerable to environmental alteration, and that very minor temperature shifts in deep-water masses can rapidly and significantly alter both structural and functional deep-sea biodiversity. This study provides new elements towards a better understanding of the potential large-scale consequences of climate change.