Dataset Information

Ecological network indicators of ecosystem status and change in the Baltic Sea.

ABSTRACT: Several marine ecosystems under anthropogenic pressure have experienced shifts from one ecological state to another. In the central Baltic Sea, the regime shift of the 1980s has been associated with food-web reorganization and redirection of energy flow pathways. These long-term dynamics from 1974 to 2006 have been simulated here using a food-web model forced by climate and fishing. Ecological network analysis was performed to calculate indices of ecosystem change. The model replicated the regime shift. The analyses of indicators suggested that the system's resilience was higher prior to 1988 and lower thereafter. The ecosystem topology also changed from a web-like structure to a linearized food-web.

SUBMITTER: Tomczak MT

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3792121 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Ecological network indicators of ecosystem status and change in the Baltic Sea.

Tomczak Maciej T MT Heymans Johanna J JJ Yletyinen Johanna J Niiranen Susa S Otto Saskia A SA Blenckner Thorsten T

PloS one 20131007 10

Several marine ecosystems under anthropogenic pressure have experienced shifts from one ecological state to another. In the central Baltic Sea, the regime shift of the 1980s has been associated with food-web reorganization and redirection of energy flow pathways. These long-term dynamics from 1974 to 2006 have been simulated here using a food-web model forced by climate and fishing. Ecological network analysis was performed to calculate indices of ecosystem change. The model replicated the regim ...[more]

PMID: 24116045

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Project description:BackgroundThe Black Sea is one of the most anthropogenically disturbed marine ecosystems in the world because of introduced species, fisheries overexploitation, nutrient enrichment via pollution through river discharge, and the impacts of climate change. It has undergone significant ecosystem transformations since the 1960s. The infamous anchovy and alien warty comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi shift that occurred in 1989 is the most well-known example of the drastic extent of anthropogenic disturbance in the Black Sea. Although a vast body of literature exists on the Black Sea ecosystem, a holistic look at the multidecadal changes in the Black Sea ecosystem using an ecosystem- and ecology-based approach is still lacking. Hence, this work is dedicated to filling this gap.MethodsFirst, a dynamic food web model of the Black Sea extending from 1960 to 1999 was established and validated against time-series data. Next, an ecological network analysis was performed to calculate the time series of synthetic ecological indicators, and a regime shift analysis was performed on the time series of indicators.ResultsThe model successfully replicated the regime shifts observed in the Black Sea. The results showed that the Black Sea ecosystem experienced four regime shifts and was reorganized due to effects instigated by overfishing in the 1960s, eutrophication and establishment of trophic dead-end organisms in the 1970s, and overfishing and intensifying interspecies trophic competition by the overpopulation of some r-selected organisms (i.e., jellyfish species) in the 1980s. Overall, these changes acted concomitantly to erode the structure and function of the ecosystem by manipulating the food web to reorganize itself through the introduction and selective removal of organisms and eutrophication. Basin-wide, cross-national management efforts, especially with regard to pollution and fisheries, could have prevented the undesirable changes observed in the Black Sea ecosystem and should be immediately employed for management practices in the basin to prevent such drastic ecosystem fluctuations in the future.

Dataset Information

Ecological network indicators of ecosystem status and change in the Baltic Sea.

Publications

Ecological network indicators of ecosystem status and change in the Baltic Sea.

Similar Datasets

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