Description: Conservation efforts strive to protect significant swaths of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems from a range of threats. As climate change becomes an increasing concern, these efforts must take into account how resilient-protected spaces will be in the face of future drivers of change such as warming temperatures. Climate landscape metrics, which signal the spatial magnitude and direction of climate change, support a convenient initial assessment of potential threats to and opportunities within ecosystems to inform conservation and policy efforts where biological data are not available. However, inference of risk from purely physical climatic changes is difficult unless set in a meaningful ecological context. Here, we aim to establish this context using historical climatic variability, as a proxy for local adaptation by resident biota, to identify areas where current local climate conditions will remain extant and future regional climate analogues will emerge. This information is then related to the processes governing species’ climate-driven range edge dynamics, differentiating changes in local climate conditions as promoters of species range contractions from those in neighbouring locations facilitating range expansions. We applied this approach to assess the future climatic stability and connectivity of Japanese waters and its network of marine protected areas (MPAs). We find 88% of Japanese waters transitioning to climates outside their historical variability bounds by 2035, resulting in large reductions in the amount of available climatic space potentially promoting widespread range contractions and expansions. Areas of high connectivity, where shifting climates converge, are present along sections of the coast facilitated by the strong latitudinal gradient of the Japanese archipelago and its ocean current system. While these areas overlap significantly with areas currently under significant anthropogenic pressures, they also include much of the MPA network that may provide stepping-stone protection for species that must shift their distribution because of climate change.

Description: Organic carbon flux and community production rates were estimated on Shiraho coral reef (Ishigaki Island, Japan) from 19 to 26 September 1998. The daily net community production (Pn) and respiration rate (R) during the study period were 3 to 79 and 596 mmolC m-2 d-1, respectively. This resulted in a daily gross community production (Pg) of 599 to 675 mmolC m-2 d-1. The variation of Pn associated with the uncertainty of the curve fitting parameters of light response curves for photosynthesis was estimated using an error propagation formula. The averaged Pn ± SE was 36 ± 12 mmolC m-2 d-1 (n = 23), indicating that the Pn was significantly positive (t-test, p 〈 0.05). The apparent fluxes of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and particulate organic carbon (POC) on the reef were estimated as 30 to 36 and 5 to 7 mmolC m-2 d-1, respectively; The sum of which was comparable with the Pn during the study period. The sediment trap study conducted at 1 km off the reef and 40 m depth showed that the vertical flux of POC was 1.0 mmolC m-2 d-1. The results indicated that 6 to 7 % of the Pg was exported to offshore and about 14 to 20% of the POC exported from the reef flat and 0.2% of the Pg reached 1 km off and 40 m depth.

Description: Monitoring seawater CO2 for a full year with seasonal observations of community metabolism in Ishigaki Island, Japan, revealed seasonal variation and anomalous values owing to the bleaching event in 1998. The daily average pCO2 showed a seasonal pattern on an annual scale, 280 to 320 ?atm in winter and 360 to 400 ?atm in summer, which was determined primarily by the seasonal change in seawater temperature. By contrast, the range in the diel variation in pCO2, 400 to 500 ?atm in summer 200 to 300 ?atm in winter, was attributed to the seasonal variation in community metabolism: Gross primary production (P g ) and respiration (R) were high in summer and low in winter. During the 1998 bleaching event, although P g and R increased, community excess organic production (E) decreased by three quarters compared with the same month in 1999, when the coral community showed high recovery. This change in metabolism led to large diel range and increased average value of pCO2 levels in the seawater on the reef flat. The decrease in the range and increase in the average value of pCO2 were observed by monitoring the Palau barrier reef flat, where overall mortality of corals occurred after the bleaching. All the metabolic parameters, P g , R, E and calcification (G) were reduced by half after the bleaching, which increased the average pCO2 value by 10 ?atm and decreased its diel range from 200-400 ?atm to 100-200 ?atm. Bleaching and resultant mortality of coral reefs led to degradation of their metabolic performance, and thus resulted in the loss of their active interaction with the carbon cycle.