Trophic-level determinants of biomass accumulation in marine ecosystems
Pranovi, Fabio; Link, Jason S.; Fu, Caihong; Cook, Adam M.; Liu, Hui; Gaichas, Sarah; Friedland, Kevin; Utne, Kjell R.; Benoît, Hugues P.
Journal article, Peer reviewed
Permanent lenke
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/109171Utgivelsesdato
2012-07-12Metadata
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Originalversjon
http://dx.doi.org/10.3354/meps09738Sammendrag
Metrics representative of key ecosystem processes are required for monitoring and
understanding system dynamics, as a function of ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM).
Useful properties of such indicators should include the ability to capture the range of variation in
ecosystem responses to a range of pressures, including anthropogenic (e.g. exploitation pressures)
and environmental (e.g. climate pressures), as well as indirect effects (e.g. those related to food
web processes). Examining modifications in ecological processes induced by structural changes,
however, requires caution because of the inherent uncertainty, long feedback times, and highly
nonlinear ecosystem responses to external perturbations. Yet trophodynamic indicators are able to
capture important changes in marine ecosystem function as community structures have been
altered. One promising family of such metrics explores the changing biomass accumulation in the
middle trophic levels (TLs) of marine ecosystems. Here we compared cumulative biomass curves
across TLs for a range of northern hemisphere temperate and boreal ecosystems. Our results confirm
that sigmoidal patterns are consistent across different ecosystems and, on a broad scale, can
be used to detect factors that most influence shifts in the cumulative biomass−TL curves. We conclude
that the sigmoidal relationship of biomass accumulation curves over TLs could be another
possible indicator useful for the implementation of EBFM.