Evidence from 12-Year Study Links Ecosystem Changes in the Gulf of Maine with Climate Change
EAST BOOTHBAY, ME --With half of Maine’s largest rainfall events of the century occurring in the past seven years, researchers at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and the U.S. Geological Survey have documented evidence of significant changes in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem directly tied to increased amounts of rainfall and volumes of river discharge.
A century of climatological data and river flow data, plus results from the Gulf of Maine North AtlanticTime Series (GNATS), provide the strongest connection yet between changing conditions on land affecting coastal ocean productivity.
Published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series (Vol. 450:11-25, 2012), the data show a large shift downward in primary productivity, with a five-fold decline in the growth rate of phytoplankton—?the microscopic, single-celled plants that form the foundation of the marine food web and ultimately support the Gulf’s fish and lobster populations. The researchers note that the impact of this decline could take several years to affect the food supply of commercial fish species, however, since the phytoplankton serve as food for larval fish, several years in advance of their harvest as adult fish.
“The Gulf of Maine has been the recipient of extraordinary amounts of runoff from land over the past few years, traceable to changing rainfall patterns over the last century. While the reasons for this dramatic decrease in marine primary production are complex, the ramifications are not particularly complicated,” said Bigelow Senior Research Scientist Dr. Barney Balch, the lead author of the study. Co-authors are Bigelow scientists David Drapeau and Bruce Bowler, and USGS Research Hydrologist Thomas Huntington.
http://www.bigelow.org/news/news_2009/gnats-study-shows-evidence-of-climate-change-in-gulf-of-maine/
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