Marine heatwaves deeply alter marine food web structure and function

Guibourd de Luzinais, Vianney; Cheung, William W. L.; Gascuel, Didier

doi:10.5194/bg-22-6583-2025

Articles | Volume 22, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-6583-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-6583-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 21

Research article

|

07 Nov 2025

Research article |

| 07 Nov 2025

Marine heatwaves deeply alter marine food web structure and function

Vianney Guibourd de Luzinais, William W. L. Cheung, and Didier Gascuel

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-6583-2025-supplement

Data sets

Species distribution estimated from four Species Distribution Models (SDM) database, with their trophic levels informations Vianney Guibourd de Luzinais https://doi.org/10.57745/PI0N92

NOAA High-Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Analysis Products, Edition 2.0 DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/metadata/landing-page/bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ncdc:C00680

Online data: Standard VGPM (1080 x 2160 monthly HDF VGPM m chl m sst) Oregon State University https://orca.science.oregonstate.edu/npp_products.php

Model code and software

EcoTroph-Dyn unexploited ecosystems Vianney Guibourd de Luzinais https://doi.org/10.57745/NHVPCR

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Short summary

Marine heatwaves (MHWs) have become more frequent and intense, yet their impacts on marine ecosystems globally remain unclear. Using a novel ecological model, we show that MHWs significantly reduced marine ecosystem biomass between 1998 and 2021, especially in the North Pacific Ocean. Marine predators are more impacted than organisms lower in the food chain. This study underscores the urgent need to integrate MHWs into developing climate-resilient marine ecosystem management and conservation plans.