Heat tolerance of marine ectotherms in a warming Antarctica

Global warming is affecting the Antarctic continent in complex ways.
Because Antarctic organisms are specialized to living in the cold, they
are vulnerable to increasing temperatures, though quantitative analyses of
this issue are currently lacking. Here we compiled a total of 184
estimates of heat tolerance belonging to 39 marine species and quantified
how survival is affected concomitantly by the intensity and duration of a
thermal stress. Species exhibit thermal limits displaced towards colder
temperatures, with contrasting strategies between arthropods and fish that
exhibit low tolerance to acute heat challenges, and brachiopods,
echinoderms and molluscs that tend to be more sensitive to chronic
exposure. These differences might be associated with mobility. A dynamic
mortality model suggests that Antarctic organisms already encounter
temperatures that might be physiologically stressful and indicate that
these ecological communities are indeed vulnerable to ongoing rising
temperatures.