Bivalve tissues as a recorder of multidecadal global anthropogenic and climate-mediated change in coastal areas

Abstract

Recent rapid changes in climate and environmental conditions have significantly impacted coastal ecosystem functioning. However, the complex interplay between global and local effects makes it challenging to pinpoint the primary drivers. In a multi-ecosystem study, we analyzed pluri-decadal trends of bivalve-δ¹³C as recorder of global environmental changes. These trends were correlated with large-scale natural and anthropogenic climate proxies to identify whether coastal biota responded to global effects. Our findings revealed decreasing bivalve-δ¹³C trends in all sea regions, mainly linked with increased temperature and atmospheric-CO₂ concentrations, the later generating a decrease in atmospheric-CO₂ δ¹³C values (Suess effect) because of fossil-fuel burning. After removing the Suess effect from bivalve-δ¹³C trends, ongoing global climate variability continues to affect most ecosystems, possibly intensified by combined, interacting regional or local effects. These results highlight the need to consider large-scale effects to fully understand ecosystem and food web responses to the multiple effects of global change.