scholarly journals North Sea ecosystem change from swimming crabs to seagulls

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 821-824 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Luczak ◽  
G. Beaugrand ◽  
J. A. Lindley ◽  
J-M. Dewarumez ◽  
P. J. Dubois ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Ecosystem Change ◽  
Sea Temperature ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Important Food Source ◽  
Induced Changes ◽  
Swimming Crabs

A recent increase in sea temperature has established a new ecosystem dynamic regime in the North Sea. Climate-induced changes in decapods have played an important role. Here, we reveal a coincident increase in the abundance of swimming crabs and lesser black-backed gull colonies in the North Sea, both in time and in space. Swimming crabs are an important food source for lesser black-backed gulls during the breeding season. Inhabiting the land, but feeding mainly at sea, lesser black-backed gulls provide a link between marine and terrestrial ecosystems, since the bottom-up influence of allochthonous nutrient input from seabirds to coastal soils can structure the terrestrial food web. We, therefore, suggest that climate-driven changes in trophic interactions in the marine food web may also have ensuing ramifications for the coastal ecology of the North Sea.

scholarly journals Warm-water decapods and the trophic amplification of climate in the North Sea

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 773-776 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Lindley ◽  
G. Beaugrand ◽  
C. Luczak ◽  
J.-M. Dewarumez ◽  
R. R. Kirby
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Warm Water ◽  
Climate Signal ◽  
Southern North Sea ◽  
The North ◽  
Ecosystem Shift ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Induced Changes ◽  
Water Species

A long-term time series of plankton and benthic records in the North Sea indicates an increase in decapods and a decline in their prey species that include bivalves and flatfish recruits. Here, we show that in the southern North Sea the proportion of decapods to bivalves doubled following a temperature-driven, abrupt ecosystem shift during the 1980s. Analysis of decapod larvae in the plankton reveals a greater presence and spatial extent of warm-water species where the increase in decapods is greatest. These changes paralleled the arrival of new species such as the warm-water swimming crab Polybius henslowii now found in the southern North Sea. We suggest that climate-induced changes among North Sea decapods have played an important role in the trophic amplification of a climate signal and in the development of the new North Sea dynamic regime.

Feeding, Growth and Reproduction of the Marine Planktonic Copepod Pseudo-Calanus Elongatus Boeck

1976 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.-A. Paffenhöfer ◽  
R. P. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Calanoid Copepods ◽  
Small Copepod ◽  
The North ◽  
Controlled Conditions ◽  
Food Concentrations ◽  
Food Species ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Growth And Reproduction

INTRODUCTIONThe development of techniques to culture calanoid copepods over multiple generations in the laboratory has resulted in considerable advances in knowledge about a group of animals of major importance in the marine food web. A series of extensive studies have been made of two species of large calanoids, Calanus helgolandicus (Claus) (Mullin & Brooks, 1967, 1970a, 1970b; Paffenhöfer, 1970, 1971, 1976a, 1976b), and Rhincalanus nasutus Giesbrecht (Mullin & Brooks, 1967, 1970a, 1970b). Feeding, growth, and reproduction have been studied under controlled conditions, using different temperatures, food species, and food concentrations. Some of the information gained in these studies has been incorporated into a simulation model of the planktonic ecosystem of the North Sea (Steele, 1974). However, in the North Sea and in many other sea areas species of small copepod probably form an important component of the food web. Little information is available on the quantitative biology of these small copepods under controlled conditions.

Large-scale responses of nematode communities to chronic otter-trawl disturbance

2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 723-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilmar Hinz ◽  
Jan G Hiddink ◽  
James Forde ◽  
Michel J Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Irish Sea ◽  
Otter Trawl ◽  
Food Web Structure ◽  
Nematode Communities ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea

Nematodes, because of their small size and short life cycles, are thought to be less affected by direct trawling mortality compared with the larger macrofauna. However, nematodes may still be indirectly affected by the physical disturbance of trawling through changing sediment characteristics and food web structure. We determined whether nematode communities on two muddy fishing grounds located in the North Sea and Irish Sea were affected by chronic otter-trawl disturbance and quantified these effects. Nematode abundance, production, and genus richness declined in response to trawling within both areas. Nematode biomass did not respond to trawling intensity. Genus composition was affected by trawling only in the North Sea. The responses in abundance of individual nematode genera to increasing trawling intensity were negative as well as positive. These results indicate that despite their size and fast life cycle, nematodes are affected by intensive trawling on muddy fishing grounds. The loss in secondary production from nematodes can have far-reaching consequences for the integrity of the benthic food web. As bottom trawl fisheries are expanding into ever deeper muddy habitats, the results presented here are an important step towards understanding the global ecosystem effects of bottom trawling.

Combined analyses reveal environmentally driven changes in the North Sea ecosystem and raise questions regarding what makes an ecosystem model’s performance credible?

2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Mackinson
Keyword(s):  
Primary Production ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Ecosystem Model ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Fish Stock ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Sea Temperature ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea

When an ecosystem model of the North Sea is calibrated to data from multiple trophic levels, the model estimated the primary production required to support the food web correlates temporally with observed changes in sea temperature and nutrient levels, supporting evidence from empirical analyses. However, a different result is given from an alternative calibration using fish stock data only. The inference taken from the emergent primary production – temperature relationship and empirical data are that, on balance, there is stronger overall evidence to support the calibration constrained at multiple trophic levels. Two important implications of the findings are (i) that the relative importance of fishing and environmental effects is likely to be interpreted differently depending on the calibration approach and (ii) the contrasting model calibrations would give different responses to fishing policies. It raises questions regarding how to judge the performance (and credibility) of an ecosystem model and the critical importance of conducting empirical and modelling analyses in parallel. Adopting a combined approach to ecosystem modelling is an important step in the pursuit of operational and defensible tools to support the ecosystem approach to management.

Decadal changes in the North Sea food web between 1981 and 1991 — implications for fish stock assessment

2006 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 2586-2602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Kempf ◽  
Jens Floeter ◽  
Axel Temming
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Fish Stock ◽  
Fish Diet ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The North ◽  
Stock Biomass ◽  
Spawning Stock ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Impact

The North Sea ecosystem of the early 1980s differed substantially from that of the early 1990s. The current North Sea multispecies fisheries assessment models are parameterized by fish diet data sets that reflect both ecosystem states, as the stomachs were sampled in 1981 and 1991. In this study, multispecies virtual population analysis (MSVPA) was parameterized with either diet data set, leading to different model food webs, each representing the predator's diet selection behavior and spatiotemporal overlap with their prey in the two respective ecosystem states. The impact of these changes in predator preferences and spatiotemporal overlap on recruitment success and on stock developments could be demonstrated by using either stomach data set to estimate historic and future spawning stock biomass and recruitment trajectories. The observed changes in the food web mainly impacted the hindcasted recruitment trajectories, whereas spawning stock biomass estimates were quite robust. In the prediction runs, the differences in the survival rate of the recruits decided whether fish stocks of commercially important species (e.g., Gadus morhua, Merlangius merlangus) would recover or collapse in the near future.

Introduction into the ecosystem of the North Sea: Hydrography, biota, and food web relationships

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. A. W. J. Wilde ◽  
M. I. Jenness ◽  
G. C. A. Duineveld
Keyword(s):  
Food Web ◽  
North Sea ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea

scholarly journals Seasonal and longer term trends in sea temperature along the French North Sea coast, 1975 to 2002

2005 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Woehrling ◽  
Alain Lefebvre ◽  
Geneviève Le Fèvre-Lehoërff ◽  
Régis Delesmont
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Sea Temperature ◽  
Southern Bight ◽  
The North ◽  
Cyclic Patterns ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Annual Index ◽  
Long Term Trends

Regular sea temperature measurements have been made since 1975 at Gravelines (French coast of the Southern Bight of the North Sea) within the framework of a research programme aimed at monitoring the influence of the thermal discharge of a nuclear power plant. The sampling has yielded a 28-year time-series. Pluriannual natural fluctuations of temperature show cyclic patterns and long-term trends in good accordance with global climatic changes as revealed by the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) annual index.

scholarly journals Climate-induced changes in the North Sea Decapoda over the last 60 years

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
JA Lindley ◽  
RR Kirby
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Induced Changes

scholarly journals Spatial heterogeneity in the structure of the planktonic food web in the North Sea

1998 ◽  
Vol 168 ◽  
pp. 197-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Richardson ◽  
TG Nielsen ◽  
FB Pedersen ◽  
JP Heilmann ◽  
B Løkkegaard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Heterogeneity ◽  
Food Web ◽  
North Sea ◽  
The North ◽  
Planktonic Food ◽  
The North Sea
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