Is our understanding of aquatic ecosystems sufficient to quantify ecologically-driven climate feedbacks?

The Earth functions as an integrated system—its current habitability to complex life is an emergent property dependent on interactions among biological, chemical and physical components. As global warming affects ecosystem structure and function, so too will the biosphere affect climate by altering atmospheric gas composition and planetary albedo. Constraining these ecosystem-climate feedbacks is essential to accurately predicting future change and developing mitigation strategies; however, interplay among ecosystem processes complicates assessment of their impact. Here, we explore the state of knowledge on how ecological and biological processes (e.g., competition, trophic interactions, metabolism, adaptation) affect the directionality and magnitude of feedbacks between ecosystems and climate, using illustrative examples from the aquatic sphere. We argue that, despite ample evidence for the likely significance of many, our present understanding of the combinatorial effects of ecosystem dynamics precludes the robust quantification of most ecologically-driven climate feedbacks. Constraining these effects must be prioritized within the ecological sciences for only by studying the biosphere as both subject and arbiter of global climate can we develop a sufficiently holistic view of the Earth system to accurately predict Earth’s future and unravel its past.

Presentation Preference: Oral

Primary Presenter: Laura Ganley, New England Aquarium (lganley@neaq.org)

Authors:

Laura Ganley, New England Aquarium  (lganley@neaq.org)

Corday Selden, Rutgers University  (crselden@marine.rutgers.edu)

Richard LaBrie, McGill  (richard.labrie@mcgill.ca)