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- Title
Combined analyses reveal environmentally driven changes in the North Sea ecosystem and raise questions regarding what makes an ecosystem model's performance credible?
- Authors
Mackinson, Steven
- Abstract
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.
- Subjects
NORTH Sea; ECOSYSTEMS; FOOD chains; PRIMARY productivity (Biology); FISHING; ENVIRONMENTAL engineering
- Publication
Canadian Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences, 2014, Vol 71, Issue 1, p31
- ISSN
0706-652X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1139/cjfas-2013-0173