Modelling the future biogeography of North Atlantic zooplankton communities in response to climate change

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Advances in habitat and climate modelling allow us to reduce uncertainties of climate change impacts on species distribution. We evaluate the impacts of future climate change in community structure, occurrence, distribution, and phenology of 14 copepod species in the North Atlantic Ocean. To this end, historical observations from Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) and environmental data extracted from POLCOMS-ERSEM model have been used. Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) have been applied to relate the species occurrence with environmental variables. Selected habitat models have been projected to future (2080-2099) environmental conditions using HAMOCC (HAMburg Ocean Carbon Cycle) and MPIOM (Max Planck Institute Ocean Model) models under A1B climate scenario, and compared to present (2001-2020) conditions. Our predictions revealed a clear response to climate change with a community poleward latitudinal shift of 8.7 km/decade on average, the species seasonal peak occurs 12-13 days earlier in the seasonal annual cycle for Calanus finmarchicus and C. hyperboreus, and important changes in community structure (a high species turnover of 42.8 -78.5% has been detected at the south of the Oceanic Polar Front). These changes might lead to alterations of the future North Atlantic pelagic ecosystem.