Climate Change Effects on Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services through a Conservation-Oriented Assessment Framework

This study develops a conservation-based evaluation framework to assess the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity and ecosystem services by considering climate exposure, biodiversity state, ecosystem-service importance, vulnerability, and conservation priority. Climate exposure, marine heat waves, acidification, deoxygenation, and sea level rise have been assessed in terms of normalized environmental indicators, whereas biodiversity has been considered in terms of species richness, abundance, Shannon diversity, functional diversity, and habitat quality. Ecosystem services are composed of fisheries, carbon storage, nutrient cycling, coastal protection, and recreation. The combined vulnerability index includes climate exposure, biodiversity sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, followed by a conservation priority index involving biodiversity and ecosystem-service importance. Coral reefs have been observed to show the highest climate exposure (0.82), biodiversity sensitivity (0.88), vulnerability (0.64), and conservation priority (0.66). Pelagic fisheries have been found to be the most important among ecosystem services (0.92), with a vulnerability of 0.50 and a conservation priority of 0.59. The vulnerability and conservation priorities of seagrass were found to be 0.48, while those of mangroves were the lowest at 0.39 and 0.45, respectively. This highlights the fact that conservation priority is determined by the cumulative effect of climate exposure, ecological sensitivity, ecosystem service importance, and adaptive capacity. The results have laid the foundation for the strategic protection and management of marine ecosystems under climate change.