Food-web indicators accounting for species interactions respond to multiple pressures

Sammanfattning

Food-web indicators for marine management are required to describe the functioning and structure of marine food-webs. In Europe, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), intended to lead to a 'good environmental status' of the marine waters, requires indicators of the status of the marine environment that also respond to manageable anthropogenic pressures. Identifying such relationships to pressures is particularly challenging for food-web indicators, as they need to be disentangled from linkages between indicators of different functional groups caused by species interactions. Still, such linkages have not been handled in the indicator development. Here we used multivariate autoregressive time series models to identify how fish indicators in an exploited food-web relate to fishing, climate and eutrophication, while accounting for the linkages between indicators caused by species interactions. We assembled 31-year long time series of indicators of key functional groups of fish in the Central Baltic Sea pelagic food-web, which is characterized by strong trophic links between cod (Gadus morhua) and its main fish prey sprat (Sprattus sprattus) and herring (Clupea harengus). These food-web indicators were either abundance-based indicators of key piscivores (cod) and zooplanktivores (sprat and herring) or size-based indicators of the corresponding trophic groups (biomass of large predatory fish (cod >= 38 cm) and biomass of small prey fish (sprat and herring

Nyckelord

Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD); Descriptor 4 (food-webs); Multivariate autoregressive models; MAR models; Density-dependence; Predator-prey interaction; Pelagic fish; Baltic Sea; Ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM)

Publicerad i

Ecological Indicators
2017, volym: 77, sidor: 67-79

SLU författare

• Torres, Marian

  • Institutionen för akvatiska resurser (SLU Aqua), Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

• Casini, Michele

  • Institutionen för akvatiska resurser (SLU Aqua), Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

• Huss, Magnus

  • Institutionen för akvatiska resurser (SLU Aqua), Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

• Gårdmark, Anna

  • Institutionen för akvatiska resurser (SLU Aqua), Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

Associerade SLU-program

Kust och hav
Övergödning
Klimat

Globala målen (SDG)

SDG14 Hav och marina resurser
SDG15 Ekosystem och biologisk mångfald

UKÄ forskningsämne

Fisk- och akvakulturforskning
Ekologi

Publikationens identifierare

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.01.030

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/80419