UV effects that come and go: a global comparison of marine benthic community level impacts |
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| Authors: | Martin Wahl,Markus Molis,rew Davis&dagger ,Sergey Dobretsov&Dagger ,Simone T. Dü rr&dagger ,Josefin Johansson§ ,Jeff Kinley&dagger ,David Kirugara¶ ,Matthias Langer&# ,Heike K. Lotze,Martin Thiel&# ,Jeremy C. Thomason&dagger &dagger ,Boris Worm,Dafna Zeevi Ben-Yosef&Dagger &Dagger |
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| Affiliation: | Marine Ecology Section, Leibniz Institute of Marine Science, Kiel University, Duesternbrookerweg 20, 24105 Kiel, Germany,;Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia,;Department of Biology, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China,;Department of Aquatic BioSciences, University of Tromsoe, Tromsoe, Norway,;Kenya Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Mombasa, Kenya,;Fac. Cienc. Mar., Univ. Catolica del Norte, Coquimbo, Chile,;Biology Department, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 4J1,;School of Biology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK,;Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv, Israel |
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| Abstract: | Ambient UV radiation has substantially increased during the last decades, but its impact on marine benthic communities is hardly known. The aim of this study was to globally compare and quantify how shallow hard‐bottom communities are affected by UV during early succession. Identical field experiments in 10 different coastal regions of both hemispheres produced a consistent but unexpected pattern: (i) UV radiation affected species diversity and community biomass in a very similar manner, (ii) diversity and biomass were reduced to a larger extent by UVA than UVB radiation, (iii) ambient UV levels did not affect the composition of the communities, and (iv) any UV effects disappeared during species succession after 2–3 months. Thus, current levels of UV radiation seem to have small, predictable, and transient effects on shallow marine hard‐bottom communities. |
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| Keywords: | climate change community resilience global assessment marine benthic diversity UV radiation |
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