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  • Review Article
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Marine heatwaves as hot spots of climate change and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services

Nature Reviews Biodiversity volume 1, pages 461–479 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Intensifying marine heatwaves (MHWs) are pervasive and destructive manifestations of anthropogenic climate change. Over the past two decades, MHWs have driven biological, ecological and socioeconomic change in almost all oceans and seas. In this Review, we assess the impacts of MHWs on marine organisms and the benefits they provide to people, highlight knowledge gaps and consider opportunities to mitigate MHW impacts. Globally, MHWs have become increasingly intense and frequent, and result in mortality or movement of species when acute temperature thresholds are exceeded. Vulnerability and resilience to MHWs vary among species, but these mortality events have been prominent for habitat-forming foundation species such as corals, kelp and seagrass, causing many cascading indirect impacts on ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. Poleward species shifts produce novel and complex species interactions and altered ecosystem functions, which have considerable consequences for people and their livelihoods. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains essential and urgent to address impacts long term, but increases in MHW intensities and duration will be unavoidable and prominent for the foreseeable future. As such, closing the current knowledge gaps around MHWs and their impacts on biodiversity, as well as proactive management strategies, are urgently needed to mitigate further damage to ecosystems and people, and to build resilience into the future.

Key points

  • Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are periods of unusually warm oceans. Globally, MHWs are a natural phenomenon but have become stronger, longer, and more frequent since ~1980, driven by anthropogenic climate change. The oceans are now experiencing record-high temperatures as warming and large-scale climate phenomena combine to intensify and prolong MHW conditions.

  • Temperature influences biological processes from cells to biomes. Species have evolved specific temperature tolerances that match their latitudinal distributions. MHWs cause acute temperature stress, where species and populations with narrow distributions, limited mobility and proximity to their warm distribution limits are most vulnerable.

  • MHWs have direct impacts on species productivity and distribution, and indirect impacts through altered species interactions. Impacts on foundation or keystone species result in cascading changes to communities, food webs and ecosystem functioning. Impacts of MHWs are often exacerbated by co-occurring stressors.

  • MHWs have affected ocean ecosystem services. Loss of fisheries, nutrient cycling, carbon storage, ecotourism and cultural values have followed shifts in species’ abundance and distribution, decimation of seagrasses, corals and kelps, and megafauna mortality. In a few cases, new opportunities have arisen.

  • Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the only long-term solution against increasingly severe MHWs. In the short term, preparation for increasing impacts of MHWs is required. Emerging adaptation approaches include flexible fisheries management and swift conservation to protect vulnerable species. Future research should integrate effects of temperature and compounding stressors.

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Fig. 1: MHWs in time and space.
Fig. 2: Exceeding acute temperature thresholds causes rapid mortality and distribution shifts.
Fig. 3: Range position and vulnerability to MHWs.
Fig. 4: Compounding stressors and species interactions modify MHW impacts.
Fig. 5: Impacts of MHWs on ecosystem services.

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Acknowledgements

T.W. and K.F.-D. were supported by the Australian (grant numbers DP200100201, LP220200004, FL240100015 and FT230100214) and Norwegian (GecoKelp project no. 335371, BlueArc project no. 334760) Research Councils. M.S.T. was supported by a University of Canterbury Seeding Grant and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Toka ākau toitu Kaitiakitanga – building a sustainable future for coastal reef ecosystems). A.S.G. was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (no. FT220100475). N.J.H. was supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (no. CE170100023) and the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Climate Systems Hub. D.A.S. was funded by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (MR/S032827/1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UWA Oceans Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia

    Thomas Wernberg, Karen Filbee-Dexter & Shinae Montie

  2. Flødevigen Research Station, Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, His, Norway

    Thomas Wernberg & Karen Filbee-Dexter

  3. Marine Ecology Research Group, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Mads S. Thomsen

  4. Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Mads S. Thomsen

  5. Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban, United Kingdom

    Michael T. Burrows

  6. CSIRO Environment, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Alistair J. Hobday

  7. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Neil J. Holbrook

  8. ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Neil J. Holbrook

  9. Dove Marine Laboratory, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK

    Pippa J. Moore

  10. Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

    Eric C. J. Oliver

  11. Climate Change Research Centre and Centre for Marine Science and Innovation, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Alex Sen Gupta

  12. ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Alex Sen Gupta

  13. The Marine Biological Association of the UK, Citadel Hill, Plymouth, UK

    Dan A. Smale & Katie Smith

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Contributions

T.W. and M.S.T. led and coordinated the review, based on discussions and contributions from all authors. All authors contributed to writing and editing.

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Correspondence to Thomas Wernberg or Mads S. Thomsen.

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Nature Reviews Biodiversity thanks Lyall Bellquist, Joaquim Garrabou and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Wernberg, T., Thomsen, M.S., Burrows, M.T. et al. Marine heatwaves as hot spots of climate change and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Nat. Rev. Biodivers. 1, 461–479 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-025-00058-5

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