Lionel Arteaga (610.1/UMBC) has published a lead author article today in the Nature journal Communications Biology titled "Impact of Pacific Ocean heatwaves on phytoplankton community composition" (doi:10.1038/s42003-023-04645-0). Dr. Arteaga provided this summary and corresponding slide (credit: L. Arteaga):

"Since 2013, marine heatwaves have become recurrent throughout the equatorial and northeastern Pacific Ocean and are expected to increase in intensity relative to historic norms. Among the ecological ramifications associated with these high temperature anomalies are increased mortality of higher trophic organisms such as marine mammals and seabirds, which are likely triggered by changes in the composition of phytoplankton, the base of the marine trophic food web. Here, we combine NASA's biogeochemical modelling and satellite imagery to reveal community level shifts in phytoplankton composition during northeastern and equatorial Pacific Ocean warming events of the last decade (2010s). In the Gulf of Alaska, the expansion of the marine heatwave known as the "Blob" in 2014 altered the transport of nutrients sustaining phytoplankton growth, causing a decline in large and silica-dependent diatoms in favor of smaller phytoplankton groups. A more dramatic change was observed in the equatorial Pacific, where the extreme warm conditions of the 2016 El Nino resulted in a major decline of about 40% in surface chlorophyll, which was associated with a nearly total collapse in diatoms. These changes in community composition could signify an important reduction in the production and export of organic carbon that sustains marine ecosystems and regulates atmospheric carbon dioxide."