New climatic targets against global warming: will the maximum 2 °C temperature rise affect estuarine benthic communities?

ABSTRACT: The Paris Agreement signed by 195 countries in 2015 sets out a global action plan to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to remain below 2 °C. Under that premise, in situ experiments were run to test the effects of 2 °C temperature increase on the benthic communities in a seagrass bed and adjacent bare sediment, from a temperate European estuary. Temperature was artificially increased in situ and diversity and ecosystem functioning components measured after 10 and 30 days. Despite some warmness effects on the analysed components, significant impacts were not verified on macro and microfauna structure, bioturbation or in the fluxes of nutrients. The effect of site/habitat seemed more important than the effects of the warmness, with the seagrass habitat providing more h

SUBMITTER: Crespo D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5478632 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature