Future sea-level rise drives rocky intertidal habitat loss and benthic community change.

ABSTRACT: The impacts of sea-level rise (SLR) are likely to be the greatest for ecosystems that exist at the land-sea interface, where small changes in sea-level could result in drastic changes in habitat availability. Rocky intertidal ecosystems possess a number of characteristics which make them highly vulnerable to changes in sea-level, yet our understanding of potential community-scale responses to future SLR scenarios is limited. Combining remote-sensing with in-situ large-area imaging, we quantified habitat extent and characterized the biological community at two rocky intertidal study locations in California, USA. We then used a model-based approach to estimate how a range of SLR scenarios would affect total habitat area, areal extent of dominant benthic space occupiers, and numerical abundan

SUBMITTER: Kaplanis NJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7263295 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature