A major new scientific review has found that climate change is already driving large-scale shifts in the plankton communities that underpin UK marine food webs, with knock-on risks for fisheries, seabirds and the ocean’s ability to store carbon.
A landmark rolling review
The study, from the UK’s Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP), warns that continued warming of UK waters is likely causing major changes to the tiny drifting organisms that are the foundation of marine food webs. The review, Impacts of Climate Change on plankton and pelagic habitats in UK waters around the UK and Ireland, updates a previous MCCIP assessment from 2020 and draws on more than 500 scientific studies published since 2019. It was led by Dr Matthew Holland of the University of Plymouth’s Centre for Marine Biology and Conservation Science, working with 17 co-authors from institutions including the Marine Biological Association (MBA), Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), the Environment Agency, Cefas, the Marine Directorate of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Association for Marine Science.
Dr Holland set out the report’s purpose in comments carried by Oceanographic: “Plankton form the foundation of marine food webs, supporting fisheries and playing a fundamental role in carbon cycling, yet they often receive far less attention than more visible parts of the marine environment. By summarising the latest evidence, I hope this report provides policymakers, managers, and the wider public with a better understanding of how climate change is already affecting UK seas, and what future changes could mean for the benefits that our shared marine ecosystem provides to society.”
A key evidence base was the MBA’s Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) Survey, one of the world’s longest-running and most geographically extensive marine ecological monitoring programmes, alongside long-term data from PML’s Western Channel Observatory.
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