Temperature sensitivity of the interspecific interaction strength of coastal marine fish communities

The effects of temperature on interaction strengths are important for understanding and forecasting how global climate change impacts marine ecosystems; however, tracking and quantifying interactions of marine fish species are practically difficult especially under field conditions, and thus, how temperature influences their interaction strengths under field conditions remains poorly understood. We herein performed quantitative fish environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding on 550 seawater samples that were collected twice a month from 11 coastal sites for 2 years in the Boso Peninsula, Japan, and analyzed eDNA monitoring data using nonlinear time series analytical tools. We detected fish-fish interactions as information flow between eDNA time series, reconstructed interaction networks for the top 50 frequently detected species, and quantified pairwise, fluctuating interaction strengths. Although there was a large variation, water temperature influenced fish-fish interaction strengths. The impact of water temperature on interspecific interaction strengths varied among fish species, suggesting that fish species identity influences the temperature effects on interactions. For example, interaction strengths that Halichoeres tenuispinis and Microcanthus strigatus received strongly increased with water temperature, while those of Engraulis japonicus and Girella punctata decreased with water temperature. An increase in water temperature induced by global climate change may change fish interactions in a complex way, which consequently influences marine community dynamics and stability. Our research demonstrates a practical research framework to study the effects of environmental variables on interaction strengths of marine communities in nature, which would contribute to understanding and predicting natural marine ecosystem dynamics.