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 temperatu...

The benefits of marine ecosystems for people are increasingly being characterized through the concept of ecosystem services, with the promise to aid decision making from marine spatial planning to ecosystem-based management. The characterization of changes in marine ecosystem services is central to the application of ecological science to policy contexts, and this field is quickly evolving with...

Olav Rune Godø1*, Nils Olav Handegard1, Howard I. Browman1, Gavin J. Macaulay1, Stein Kaartvedt2, Jarl Giske3, Egil Ona1, Geir Huse1, and Espen Johnsen1 Institute of Marine Research, PO Box 1870 Nordnes, 5817 Bergen, Norway King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia University of Bergen, PO Box 7800, 5020 Bergen, Norway *Corresponding author: tel: +47 55238500; fax...

At a meeting on marine ecosystem modelling held in Barcelona in November 2010, a wide range of tools were introduced by their developers. An officer of the European Commission was invited to the meeting as a key client of these tools, and he severely criticized the tools presented as being useless. This criticism led to a strong reaction by the modellers and an interesting debate. In this paper...

A major focus of ecological research has been on understanding the processes that determine the diversity of organisms at a particular location (Hutchinson 1959) . Many important classic studies elucidating these local-scale processes have been conducted in marine hard-bottom communities (e.g. Kitching and Ebling 1961 ; Paine 1966 ; Menge and Sutherland 1976 ; Connell 1978 ; Lubchenco 1978 ; So...

To achieve an ‘ecosystems approach’ for marine resource management, we need to disentangle human impacts from natural variability, over a range of temporal and spatial scales. This Theme combines physical modelling and trophic dynamics to re-assess past changes in marine ecosystems and predict their future development. It includes consideration of the ecological impacts of renewable energy sche...

Understanding the drivers (internal and external) that determine the productivity of marine ecosystems is challenging. For example, the correct estimate of recruitment is essential to estimate fish stock abundance. In this Theme Section, 5 papers explore the effect of fishing and climate on population structure across sub-Arctic ecosystems. The studies focus on how temperatureand fishing-induce...

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2014.04.024 0079-6611/ 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0)1517954853. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Holt). Jason Holt a,⇑, J. Icarus Allen , Thomas R. Anderson , Robert Brewin , Momme Butenschön , James Harl...

I N T E R N A T I O N A L E X P E R I E N C E Around the world many fisheries have collapsed, including some in Australia. Consequently marine fisheries are under increasing pressure to adopt more precautionary management approaches. Although Australia’s fisheries are generally in good shape—few are overfished—many are fully exploited. Overseas experience tells us that even the best fisheries m...

,.1bstd./. Thc papef explorcs t{o q pcs ol indicabrs: Odum's 24 attributes fordescribing the state ofan ecoststem bascd on its maturityi aDd thc fishing in-balance (flB) index for descfibing how ecosysiem exploitation changes ovcr timc. Application ofthc flB indcx to the Culfof Ihailand and the North Atlantic fisheries, describing lhe developmenl in lishedes crtches .]nd thcir lrophic levels ov...