ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Global warming is causing a more pronounced dip in marine species richness around the equator.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 61 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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61 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Responses of marine trophic levels to the combined effects of ocean acidification and warming.Nature communications · 2024Pooled it
- From plankton to fish: 21st-century redistribution of marine biodiversity and the changing role of rare species.Science advances · 2026Article
- Mapping the Global Habitat Redistribution of Critically Endangered Commercial Fish Species Under Climate Change.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Discrete-time exploitative competition model of different stage-specific predators.Journal of mathematical biology · 2026Article
- Reproductive physiological impacts of high ambient temperature on animals: the impaired testicular function and compromised sperm quality in C57BL/6 mice.Biological research · 2025Article
- Global environmental drivers shape Cenozoic neoselachian diversity and identify modern conservation priorities.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Habitat degradation alters trait-based survival in a coral reef fish.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Tropics to the Poles: A Snapshot of Coastal Eukaryotic Marine Microalgal Diversity Across Five Ecoregions.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Deep-sea-floor diversity in Asteroidea is shaped by competing processes across different latitudes and oceans.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Assessing and updating the environmental and conservation status of three endangered endemic plants in light of potential climate change in Saint Catherine Protectorate, Egypt.BMC plant biology · 2025Article
- Increasing Sea Surface Temperatures Driving Widespread Tropicalization in South Atlantic Pelagic Fisheries.Biology · 2025Article
- Integrating hotspot dynamics and centers of diversity: a review of Indo-Australian Archipelago biogeographic evolution and conservation.Marine life science & technology · 2025Article
- Climate change redefines sea turtle hotspots: Vessel strike risks and gaps in protected areas.Science advances · 2025Article
- Contrasting Population Trajectories of Temperate Reef Fishes and Invertebrates Following Seasonal and Multi-Decadal Temperature Change.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Heat shock transcription factor-mediated thermal tolerance and cell size plasticity in marine diatoms.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Marine species and assemblage change foreshadowed by their thermal bias over Early Jurassic warming.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Emergent patterns of reef fish diversity correlate with coral assemblage shifts along the Great Barrier Reef.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Clustered warming tolerances and the nonlinear risks of biodiversity loss on a warming planet.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Temperature and biodiversity influence community stability differently in birds and fishes.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
1 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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4 authors.
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Abstract
The latitudinal gradient in species richness, with more species in the tropics and richness declining with latitude, is widely known and has been assumed to be stable over recent centuries. We analyzed data on 48,661 marine animal species since 1955, accounting for sampling variation, to assess whether the global latitudinal gradient in species richness is being impacted by climate change. We confirm recent studies that show a slight dip in species richness at the equator. Moreover, richness across latitudinal bands was sensitive to temperature, reaching a plateau or declining above a mean annual sea surface temperature of 20 °C for most taxa. In response, since the 1970s, species richness has declined at the equator relative to an increase at midlatitudes and has shifted north in the northern hemisphere, particularly among pelagic species. This pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that climate change is impacting the latitudinal gradient in marine biodiversity at a global scale. The intensification of the dip in species richness at the equator, especially for pelagic species, suggests that it is already too warm there for some species to survive.
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