Natural climate patterns like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), North Pacific Gyre Oscillation, and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and seasonal upwelling provide a suite of existing climate variability that we can utilize to determine marine community sensitivity to global climate change. Prior research showed that growth rates, recruitment rates, and physiology of rocky intertidal species were sensitive to one or more of these climatic patterns. Whether sensitivity in these processes translates into emergent community-level sensitivity to climate variation is unclear. We used an 11-year dataset (2006-2017) from 10 sites in Oregon and northern California. We asked whether the community structure, the direction or rate of community change, the abundance of focal functional groups, or biodiversity correlated with yearly fluctuations in PDO, NPGO, ENSO and upwelling.
Results/Conclusions
Contrary to expectations, community structure responded weakly to yearly variation in the 4 climate modes (each contributing 2.7% or less). Similarly, we found no effects on the direction or rate or community change, abundance of functional groups, or biodiversity. We conclude that previously established sensitivity of ecological processes to climate mode does not translate into sensitivity in community structure. Possible reasons include that many taxa are long-lived, can regenerate after disturbance, can plastically respond to stress, and are controlled by top-down forces. Overall, at the decadal scale of our study, this system appears resilient to climate-related environmental change.