A1 Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä lehdessä
Small‐scale thermal habitat variability may not determine seagrass resilience to climate change
Tekijät: Hattich, Giannina S. I.; Jahnke, Marlene; Enge, Swantje; Niemi, Niklas; Bernal-Gómez, Maru; De Wit, Pierre; Havenhand, Jonathan N.; Pansch, Christian
Kustantaja: Wiley
Kustannuspaikka: HOBOKEN
Julkaisuvuosi: 2025
Journal: Limnology and Oceanography
Tietokannassa oleva lehden nimi: Limnology and Oceanography
Lehden akronyymi: LIMNOL OCEANOGR
Vuosikerta: 70
Numero: 8
Aloitussivu: 2039
Lopetussivu: 2052
Sivujen määrä: 14
ISSN: 0024-3590
eISSN: 1939-5590
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.70049
Verkko-osoite: https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.70049
Rinnakkaistallenteen osoite: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/499533622
Seagrass ecosystems are integral components of coastal marine environments, but they face global threats from climate change. The ability of seagrass to withstand these challenges depends on trait variation among individuals, which is influenced by genetic background and plasticity. In this study, we explore how small-scale thermal habitat variability contributes to intraspecific trait variation in the eelgrass Zostera marina and how this variation affects resilience to climate change. We hypothesize that eelgrass meadows with higher mean and more variable summer temperatures exhibit greater resilience. Despite their proximity (maximum distance of 14 km), the 10 assessed meadows exhibited distinct thermal microclimates and were genetically differentiated from each other. We conducted a common garden experiment subjecting eelgrass shoots from these meadows to increased temperature and decreased salinity to represent a projected future climate. The treatment led to a significantly increased mortality, higher prevalence of the eelgrass wasting disease, reduced development of new leaves, and overall diminished growth of Z. marina. Responses varied among meadows, independent of their natural thermal summer microclimates. We discuss this mismatch between local microclimate and phenotypic response with a strong focus on the potential of microclimates (higher summer temperature, lower winter temperatures, pronounced variability) to impede differences in intraspecific trait variation among meadows. Overall, our study emphasizes the need for comprehensive habitat characterization paired with the assessment of (thermal) performance curves to unravel the complex effects of microclimates on intraspecific trait variation and, consequently, species resilience to climate change.
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The work has been supported by the FORMAS Grant 2018-00682 to Jonathan N. Havenhand and Pierre De Wit. We thank Youk Greeve for running the fetch model (). We also thank Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica and the ERASMUS exchange program for the financial aid allowing Niklas Niemi to conduct the experiment. We thank The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for funding mobility for this project. Giannina S. I. Hattich was funded through the Walter Benjamin Programme from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Grant Number HA9696/1-1). Marlene Jahnke was supported by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS (Grant Number 2020-008), which also financed the sequencing of the assessed populations. Sequencing was performed at the National Genomics Infrastructure Sweden in Uppsala. National Genomics Infrastructure is supported by the Science for Life Laboratory, the Swedish Research Council and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The bioinformatic analyses were enabled by resources provided by the National Academic Infrastructure for Supercomputing in Sweden (NAISS) at UPPMAX, funded by the Swedish Research Council through Grant Agreement Number 2022-06725. We also thank Lydia Williams for help with the ImageJ analysis. We have used Grammarly to correct grammatical errors and improve the clarity of the text. We thank the reviewers and the editors for their valuable comments and constructive feedback, which have enhanced the quality of this manuscript. Open access publishing facilitated by Abo Akademi, as part of the Wiley - FinELib agreement
