Martin Pierre Marzloff (1), Jessica Melbourne-‐Thomas (2,3), Katell G. Hamon (4), Eriko Hoshino (1,5,) Sarah Jennings (5,6), Ingrid van Putten (6,7), Gretta T. Pecl (1,6)
1 Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), Private Bag 129, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia, Martin.Marzloff@utas.edu.au
2 Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Private Bag 80, Hobart Tasmania 7001, Australia
3 Australian Antarctic Division, Department of The Environment, Channel Highway, Kingston 7005, Australia
4 LEI – Wageningen UR, PO Box 29703, 2502 LS ‘S Gravenhage, The Netherlands
5 University of Tasmania – Tasmanian School Of Business and Economics, Private Bag 85, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
6 Centre for Marine Socio-‐ecology, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, 7001, Australia
7 CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Castray Esplanade, Tasmania 7001, Australia
As marine ecosystems face global climate-‐driven ocean changes, polewards re-‐distributions of species – or range shifts – occur across taxa and latitudes worldwide. Research on these range shifts largely focuses on understanding and predicting changes in the distribution of individual species. The ecological effects of marine range shifts on ecosystem structure and functioning, as well as human coastal communities, can be large, yet remain difficult to anticipate and manage. Here, we use qualitative modelling of system feedback to understand the cumulative impacts of multiple species shifts in southeastern Australia, a global hotspot for ocean warming. We identify range-‐shifting species, or ‘range-‐shifters’, that can induce trophic cascades and affect ecosystem dynamics and productivity, and evaluate the potential effectiveness of alternative management interventions to mitigate these impacts. Our results show that, (i) multiple simultaneous range shifts amplify each other’s negative ecological impacts and (ii) implementing a whole-‐of-‐ecosystem management strategy and combining a suite of management interventions, is necessary to effectively prevent undesirable consequences of marine range shifts at the regional scale. Our study illustrates how modelling system feedback with only limited qualitative information about ecosystem structure and range-‐ shifting species can predict ecological consequences of multiple co-‐occurring range shifts, guide ecosystem-‐ based adaptation to climate change, and help prioritise future research and monitoring.
