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.