Climate change impacts on seabirds and marine mammals: the importance of study duration, thermal tolerance and generation time

Understanding climate change impacts on top predators is fundamental to marine biodiversity conservation, due to their increasingly threatened populations and their importance in marine ecosystems. We conducted a systematic review of the effects of climate change (prolonged, directional change) and climate variability on seabirds and marine mammals. We extracted data from 484 studies (4808 published studies were reviewed), comprising 2215 observations on demography, phenology, distribution, diet, behaviour, body condition and physiology. The likelihood of concluding that climate change had an impact increased with study duration. However, the temporal thresholds for the effects of climate change to be discernible varied from 10 to 29 years depending on the species, the biological response and the oceanic study region. Species with narrow thermal ranges and relatively long generation times were more often reported to be affected by climate change. This provides an important framework for...

鉴于海洋顶级捕食者（top predators）的种群日益受到威胁，且其在海洋生态系统中发挥着关键作用，厘清气候变化对其产生的影响，对于海洋生物多样性保护而言至关重要。我们针对气候变化（即长期、方向性变化）与气候变率对海鸟及海洋哺乳动物的影响开展了系统综述。本次研究从484项入选研究（共梳理了4808篇已发表文献）中提取数据，涵盖2215条观测记录，涉及种群统计学、物候、分布、食性、行为、体况及生理学等多个领域。得出气候变化已产生影响这一结论的可能性，随研究时长的增加而升高。不过，气候变化影响可被辨识的时间阈值因物种、生物学响应类型及海洋研究区域而异，区间为10至29年。具有较窄温度耐受范围及相对较长世代时间的物种，被报道受到气候变化影响的频次更高。本研究为……提供了重要的研究框架。