Redistribution of vocal snapping shrimps under climate change

A variety of marine organisms can produce sounds that are important components of the marine soundscape and play a critical role in maintaining marine biodiversity. Climate change has greatly altered the geographical ranges of many marine species, including sound-producing organisms. However, the direction and the magnitude of the potential impact of climate change on the geographical distribution of sound-producing marine organisms in future remain largely unknown. To address this knowledge gap, we selected snapping shrimp, one of the most well-known marine sound-producing organisms, as a model species and explored their redistribution under climate change via species distribution models. We aimed to predict the redistribution of snapping shrimps under climate change and identify the influencing factors, which have important implications for marine conservation. Our models exhibited good discrimination abilities and identified maximum temperature as the most influential predictor of snapping shrimp distribution. Model predictions suggested that species richness is higher in tropical and temperate coastal waters and peaks in the Indo-Pacific region. The majority of snapping shrimp species are expected to respond to the changing climate by shifting their geographical ranges to deeper waters and higher latitudes. Our results showed that, in the future, high-latitude species were more likely to experience range expansion, whereas low-latitude species might experience range contraction. Moreover, the Central Indo-Pacific are predicted to suffer the biggest decline in species richness, whereas areas such as the coastal waters of southern Australia and northern China might serve as climate refuges for snapping shrimps in the future. In summary, this study highlights the potential effects of climate change on the distribution of sound-producing snapping shrimps, which may result in cascading effects on marine ecosystems.