Projecting range limits with coupled thermal tolerance - climate change models: an example based on gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus) along the U.S. east coast

We couple a species range limit hypothesis with the output of an ensemble of general circulation models to project the poleward range limit of gray snapper. Using laboratory-derived thermal limits and statistical downscaling from IPCC AR4 general circulation models, we project that gray snapper will...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPloS one Vol. 7; no. 12; p. e52294
Main Authors Hare, Jonathan A, Wuenschel, Mark J, Kimball, Matthew E
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 20.12.2012
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Animal behavior
Animals
Biology
Climate Change
Climate change models
Climate effects
Climate models
Climate variability
Coasts
Earth Sciences
Ecosystem biology
Ecosystems
Environmental conditions
Enzyme kinetics
Expatriates
Fish
Fisheries
Fishing
Gene expression
General circulation models
Global temperature changes
Hypotheses
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Laboratories
Lutjanus griseus
Mitochondrial DNA
Models, Theoretical
Mortality
Perciformes - physiology
Physiology
Pleuronectes platessa
Statistical analysis
Statistics
Studies
Temperature
Temperature tolerance
Thermal stress
Uncertainty
United States
United States
Florida
United States > US
Massachusetts
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Summary:We couple a species range limit hypothesis with the output of an ensemble of general circulation models to project the poleward range limit of gray snapper. Using laboratory-derived thermal limits and statistical downscaling from IPCC AR4 general circulation models, we project that gray snapper will shift northwards; the magnitude of this shift is dependent on the magnitude of climate change. We also evaluate the uncertainty in our projection and find that statistical uncertainty associated with the experimentally-derived thermal limits is the largest contributor (∼ 65%) to overall quantified uncertainty. This finding argues for more experimental work aimed at understanding and parameterizing the effects of climate change and variability on marine species.
Bibliography:Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Conceived and designed the experiments: JAH MJW. Performed the experiments: JAH. Analyzed the data: JAH MJW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JAH MJW MEK. Wrote the paper: JAH MJW MEK.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0052294