Figure
8
Figure 8. Can trait-based environmental filtering explain
ecosystem shifts under global change? By the late 1990s, climate change
and over-exploitation had both begun to alter environmental filters on
marine species’ abiotic, dispersal, and biotic traits, leading to rapid
range expansion of the ecosystem engineer Centrlostephanus
rodgersii from New South Wales (NSW) into Tasmania in Southeastern
Australia. Ocean warming raised coastal temperatures off Tasmania above
critical thermal limits for C. rodgersii larval survival (a key
abiotic trait). A long larval phase and resistance to starvation (two
dispersal traits) facilitated C. rodgersii colonization of
Tasmania from NSW, where populations of nocturnal predators adapted to
crushing bottom-dwelling prey such as C. rodgersii (trophic
interaction traits) had been depleted due to over-harvesting.