Trophic amplification of climate warming

Ecosystems can alternate suddenly between contrasting persistent states due to internal processes or external drivers. It is important to understand the mechanisms by which these shifts occur, especially in exploited ecosystems. There have been several abrupt marine ecosystem shifts attributed either to fishing, recent climate change or a combination of these two drivers. We show that temperature has been an important driver of the trophodynamics of the North Sea, a heavily fished marine ecosystem, for nearly 50 years and that a recent pronounced change in temperature established a new ecosystem dynamic regime through a series of internal mechanisms. Using an end-to-end ecosystem approach that included primary producers, primary, secondary and tertiary consumers, and detritivores, we found that temperature modified the relationships among species through nonlinearities in the ecosystem involving ecological thresholds and trophic amplifications. Trophic amplification provides an alternative mechanism to positive feedback to drive an ecosystem towards a new dynamic regime, which in this case favours jellyfish in the plankton and decapods and detritivores in the benthos. Although overfishing is often held responsible for marine ecosystem degeneration, temperature can clearly bring about similar effects. Our results are relevant to ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), seen as the way forward to manage exploited marine ecosystems.

Responses in Arctic marine carbon cycle processes: conceptual scenarios & implications for ecosystem.

The Arctic Ocean is one of the fastest changing oceans, plays an important role in global carbon cycling and yet is a particularly challenging ocean to study. Hence, observations tend to be relatively sparse in both space and time. How the Arctic functions, geophysically, but also ecologically, can have significant consequences for the internal cycling of carbon, and subsequently influence carbon export, atmospheric CO2 uptake and food chain productivity. Here we assess the major carbon pools and associated processes, specifically summarizing the current knowledge of each of these processes in terms of data availability and ranges of rates and values for four geophysical Arctic Ocean domains originally described by Carmack & Wassmann (2006): inflow shelves, which are Pacific-influenced and Atlantic-influenced; interior, river-influenced shelves; and central basins. We attempt to bring together knowledge of the carbon cycle with the ecosystem within each of these different geophysical settings, in order to provide specialist information in a holistic context. We assess the current state of models and how they can be improved and/or used to provide assessments of the current and future functioning when observational data are limited or sparse. In doing so, we highlight potential links in the physical oceanographic regime, primary production and the flow of carbon within the ecosystem that will change in the future. Finally, we are able to highlight priority areas for research, taking a holistic pan-Arctic approach.