Interactive effects of multiple stressors in coastal ecosystems

Abstract

Coastal ecosystems are increasingly experiencing anthropogenic pressures such as climate warming, CO2 increase, metal and organic pollution, overfishing, and resource extraction. Some resulting stressors are more direct like pollution and fisheries, and others more indirect like ocean acidification, yet they jointly affect marine biota, communities, and entire ecosystems. While single-stressor effects have been widely investigated, the interactive effects of multiple stressors on ecosystems are less researched. In this study, we review the literature on multiple stressors and their interactive effects in coastal environments across organisms. We classify the interactions into three categories: synergistic, additive, and antagonistic. We found phytoplankton and bivalves to be the most studied taxonomic groups. Climate warming is identified as the most dominant stressor which, in combination, with other stressors such as ocean acidification, eutrophication, and metal pollution exacerbate adverse effects on physiological traits such as growth rate, fitness, basal respiration, and size. Phytoplankton appears to be most sensitive to interactions between warming, metal and nutrient pollution. In warm and nutrient-enriched environments, the presence of metals considerably affects the uptake of nutrients, and increases respiration costs and toxin production in phytoplankton. For bivalves, warming and low pH are the most lethal stressors. The combined effect of heat stress and ocean acidification leads to decreased growth rate, shell size, and acid-base regulation capacity in bivalves. However, for a holistic understanding of how coastal food webs will evolve with ongoing changes, we suggest more research on ecosystem-level responses. This can be achieved by combining in-situ observations from controlled environments (e.g. mesocosm experiments) with modelling approaches.