scholarly journals Marine research and management topics addressed by process-based ecosystem models

2021 ◽  
Vol 680 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
SS Hjøllo ◽  
SM van Leeuwen ◽  
M Maar
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Models ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Dynamic Modelling ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Ecosystem Models ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressures ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Marine Research ◽  
The Face

The earth’s oceans and ecosystems face climatic changes and multiple anthropogenic stressors. In the face of this, managers of the marine environment are increasingly adopting the ecosystem approach to underpin their decision making. Process-based ecosystem models (frequently referred to as dynamic models) synthesize existing observational and experimental knowledge into a numerical framework, but an obstacle to the incorporation of these models in management is the lack of credibility due to limited control of uncertainty in the results. The 13 papers in this Theme Section highlight how ecosystem models are, or can be, applied as management tools, and the various ways in which they quantify uncertainty and evaluate the skill. The papers span all levels of biological organization from individuals to populations and ecosystems, and cover a wide selection of anthropogenic pressures. Bearing in mind that the interpretation of observations is in fact also a model with representativeness error, we advocate a closer combination of observations and models to bring both methods forward. With the current challenges to the marine ecosystem and our uses of it, the more tools marine managers have in their ‘toolbox’, the better; dynamic modelling is one such very important tool, and its inclusion in ecosystem management should be continuously assessed.

scholarly journals Detection of Ecological Thresholds and Selection of Indicator Taxa for Epibenthic Communities Exposed to Multiple Pressures

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Isabel ◽  
David Beauchesne ◽  
Chris McKindsey ◽  
Philippe Archambault
Keyword(s):  
Benthic Communities ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressures ◽  
Eastern Canada ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Indicator Taxa ◽  
Multiple Pressures ◽  
Concentration Threshold ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Epibenthic Communities

The estuary and the Gulf of St. Lawrence (EGSL), eastern Canada form a vast inland sea that is subjected to numerous anthropogenic pressures. Management tools are needed to detect and quantify their effect on benthic communities. The aims of this study are to analyze the spatial distribution of epibenthic communities in the EGSL and quantify the impact of important pressures on them to identify indicator taxa. Epibenthic communities were sampled at 1314 EGSL sites between 2011 and 2018 by bottom trawling. Cluster analyses revealed the presence of six distinct epibenthic communities that seem to be strongly influenced by oxygen concentration. Threshold analyses confirm that oxygen is an important predictor of epibenthic community composition and distribution. A major oxygen threshold is observed around 50–100 μmol O2 L–1, resulting in a shift of community type. At these concentrations and below, opportunistic taxa dominate the community while sensitive taxa are absent or present at very low abundance. Biomass of the latter only starts to increase when oxygen concentrations reach 150 μmol O2 L–1. The species Actinostola callosa, Actinauge cristata, Ctenodiscus crispatus, and Brisaster fragilis were identified as good indicators for detecting this impact threshold forepibenthic communities. This study provides threshold-based indicator species that help to establish and monitor the ecological state of epibenthic communities in a marine ecosystem exposed to multiple pressures.

Advancing an Ecosystem Approach in the Gulf of Maine

2012 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Ecosystem Health ◽  
Gulf Of Maine ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Ecosystem Models ◽  
Management Scenarios ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
And Function

<i>Abstract</i>.—A growing variety and intensity of human activities threaten the health of marine ecosystems and the sustained delivery of services provided by oceans and coasts. The Gulf of Maine (GoM) is no exception to this trend, and as such, an ecosystem- based approach to managing the region has gained traction in recent years. The ultimate aim of marine ecosystem-based management (EBM) is to maintain ecosystem health (i.e., structure and function) and to sustain the full suite of ecosystem services on which people rely. Maintaining ecosystem health and sustaining services are related goals, both from a scientific and management perspective, yet in some cases, the interplay between the two is not well understood. Here, we examine relationships between attributes of ecosystem health and ecosystem services. In particular, we explore how outputs from ecosystem models, originally developed for ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), can be used to quantify and value services of particular relevance to the GoM environments and human populations. We highlight services, such as the provisioning of food from fisheries, that ecosystem models are well equipped to inform and reveal where more work is needed to value other services, such as the protection from erosion and inundation afforded by coastal habitats. EBM also requires knowledge about the costs and benefits of management decisions for humans and ecosystems. We demonstrate how ecosystem models can be used to explicitly illustrate trade-offs between attributes of ecosystem health and ecosystem services that result from alternative management scenarios. By bridging the gap between models developed for EBFM and ecosystem service models, we identify existing science and future needs for informing an ecosystem approach to managing the GoM.

scholarly journals Disentangling diverse responses to climate change among global marine ecosystem models

2021 ◽  
pp. 102659
Author(s):  
Ryan F. Heneghan ◽  
Eric Galbraith ◽  
Julia L. Blanchard ◽  
Cheryl Harrison ◽  
Nicolas Barrier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Ecosystem Models ◽  
Marine Ecosystem Models

scholarly journals The risk to fishery performance associated with spatially resolved management of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) harvesting

2009 ◽  
Vol 66 (10) ◽  
pp. 2148-2154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simeon L. Hill ◽  
Philip N. Trathan ◽  
David J. Agnew
Keyword(s):  
Antarctic Krill ◽  
Euphausia Superba ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Fishing Effort ◽  
Target Species ◽  
Ecosystem Models ◽  
Spatially Resolved ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Antarctic Krill Euphausia Superba

Abstract Hill, S. L., Trathan, P. N., and Agnew, D. J. 2009. The risk to fishery performance associated with spatially resolved management of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) harvesting. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 2148–2154. The ecosystem approach to fisheries attempts to define objectives for target species, the wider ecosystem, and critically, the fishery itself. Proposals for implementing the approach often include spatial restrictions on harvesting, so it is important to understand how these will affect fishery performance. One metric of potential performance is the probability of encountering exploitable densities of a target species at the scale of fishing operations. The probability of encountering exploitable densities of Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, at the scale of 1 nautical mile during an acoustic survey was predicted by bathymetry and the mean krill density at the larger scale at which the fishery is managed. This suggests that the risk to fishery performance will increase if management actions relocate the fishery into deeper water. The results also suggest that ecosystem models resolved to the spatial scale of management units could usefully predict effects at the scale of fishing operations. However, correct parameterization of these models will require better characterization of threshold densities for efficient exploitation. Finally, the distribution of catch and fishing effort over an entire fishing season reflected the distribution of krill density observed during the survey.

scholarly journals Poseidon: A marine environmental monitoring, forecasting and information system for the Greek seas

2000 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 71 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.H. SOUKISSIAN ◽  
G. CHRONIS
Keyword(s):  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Coastal Zone Management ◽  
Aegean Sea ◽  
Sea Transport ◽  
Marine Research ◽  
Zone Management ◽  
Operational Oceanography ◽  
Monitoring And Forecasting ◽  
Forecasting System ◽  
Marine Environmental

The scope of this work is twofold: i) to discuss and analyze some principles, issues and problems related to the development and advancement of Operational Oceanography in Greece and ii) to present a real-time monitoring and forecasting system for the Aegean Sea, which is currently under implementation. Operational Oceanography in Greece has become a necessity today, since it can provide aid to find solutions on problems related to societal, economic, environmental and scientific issues. Most of the Greek coastal regions are under pressure, susceptible to damages due to the increasing tendency of the population to move from the inland to the coast, marine environmental pollution, competitive development of the coastal market sector, etc. Moreover, the complex geomorphology of the coastal areas and the interdependence between natural processes and human activities causes significant alterations in this delicate environment. A rational treatment of these problems can be based on integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). An absolutely necessary means for establishing ICZM is the operation of marine moni- toring systems. Such a system ("POSEIDON system") is under implementation by the National Centre for Marine Research. POSEIDON is a comprehensive marine monitoring and forecasting system, that aims to improve environmental surveillance and facilitate sea transport, rescue and safety of life at sea, fishing and aquaculture, protection of the marine ecosystem, etc. POSEIDON is expected to enhance considerably the capabilities to manage, protect and develop the marine resources of the Greek Seas and to promote Greek Operational Oceanography.

scholarly journals Distribution of mesozooplankton biomass in the global ocean

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 893-919
Author(s):  
R. Moriarty ◽  
T. D. O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Dry Mass ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Ecosystem Models ◽  
Mesozooplankton Biomass ◽  
Carbon Biomass ◽  
Community Effort ◽  
Marine Ecosystem Models ◽  
The Tropics

Abstract. Mesozooplankton are cosmopolitan within the sunlit layers of the global ocean. They are important in the classical food web, having a significant feedback to primary production through their consumption of phytoplankton and microzooplankton. They are also the primary contributor to vertical particle flux in the oceans. Through both they affect the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and other nutrients in the oceans. Little, however, is known about their global distribution and biomass. While global maps of mesozooplankton biomass do exist in the literature they are usually in the form of hand-drawn maps and the original data associated with these maps are not readily available. The dataset presented in this synthesis has been in development since the late 1990's, is an integral part of the Coastal &amp; Oceanic Plankton Ecology, Production, &amp; Observation Database (COPEPOD), and is now also part of a wider community effort to provide a global picture of carbon biomass data for key plankton functional types, in particular to support the development of marine ecosystem models. A total of 153 163 biomass values were collected, from a variety of sources, for mesozooplankton. Of those 2% were originally recorded as dry mass, 26% as wet mass, 5% as settled volume, and 68% as displacement volume. Using a variety of non-linear biomass conversions from the literature, the data have been converted from their original units to carbon biomass. Depth-integrated values were then used to calculate mesozooplankton global biomass. Global mesozooplankton biomass, to a depth of 200 m, had a mean of 5.9 μg C l−1, median of 2.7 μg C l−1 and a standard deviation of 10.6 μg C l−1. The global annual average estimate of mesozooplankton, based on the median value, was 0.19 Pg C. Biomass was highest in the Northern Hemisphere, but the general trend shows a slight decrease from polar oceans to temperate regions with values increasing again in the tropics. Gridded dataset http://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.785501x.

scholarly journals An underwater light attenuation scheme for marine ecosystem models

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (21) ◽  
pp. 16581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley Penta ◽  
Zhongping Lee ◽  
Raphael M. Kudela ◽  
Sherry L. Palacios ◽  
Deric J. Gray ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Light Attenuation ◽  
Ecosystem Models ◽  
Underwater Light ◽  
Marine Ecosystem Models

scholarly journals The history of the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom and the influence of the publication on marine research

2019 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Dando ◽  
Eve C. Southward
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Marine Environment ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Long Term Results ◽  
Marine Research ◽  
Biological Association ◽  
Marine Biological ◽  
Marine Biological Association ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Long Time

AbstractThe origin and development of the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom is described on the occasion of the publication of the 100th volume. Papers in the Journal demonstrate how the techniques and approaches to the study of the marine environment have evolved over the 120 years of publication. The early papers provided a baseline description of the marine environment and of marine communities that allowed the effects of later perturbations of the environment to be determined. Both the early papers and the long time series of records have proved to be particularly relevant as marine scientists try to predict the long-term results of climatic and anthropogenic effects on the marine ecosystem. The Journal has now become increasingly international, with most papers coming from outside Europe.

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