Impacts of Climate Change on Marine Organisms

Metadata for observed changes, including null responses, of marine organisms were synthesised from studies in the peer-reviewed literature where authors considered if these were related, or not, to recent climate change. A study had to meet three criteria for inclusion: (1) authors inferred or directly tested for trends in biological and climatic variables; (2) data after 1990 were included; and (3) to minimize the chance of bias resulting from short-term biological responses to natural climate variability, observations spanned at least 19 years. We defined six classes of biological observations: abundance, distribution, phenology, demography, calcification, and community composition. We included data from both continuous data series and comparisons of two periods in time, if they met our criteria. Metadata include citation, biological observation, location, length of time series and sample density, organism/community identity, quantitative metrics of rates of change (if available), significance of tests of trends in biological response and attribution to climate change (where available), and whether other potential drivers of change (such as pollution, or exploitation) were considered. The purpose of the data were to explore the impacts of climate change on marine life through meta-analysis.