Signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem

The Northwest Atlantic cod stocks collapsed in the early 1990s and have yet to recover, despite the subsequent establishment of a continuing fishing moratorium. Efforts to understand the collapse and lack of recovery have so far focused mainly on the dynamics of commercially harvested species. Here,...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Royal Society Open Science
Main Authors: Pedersen, Eric J., Thompson, Patrick L., Ball, R. Aaron, Fortin, Marie-Josée, Gouhier, Tarik C., Link, Heike, Moritz, Charlotte, Nenzen, Hedvig, Stanley, Ryan R. E., Taranu, Zofia E., Gonzalez, Andrew, Guichard, Frédéric, Pepin, Pierre
Other Authors: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, Canadian Fisheries Research Network, Canadian Institute for Ecology and Evolution
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: The Royal Society 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170215
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.170215
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsos.170215
id crroyalsociety:10.1098/rsos.170215
record_format openpolar
spelling crroyalsociety:10.1098/rsos.170215 2024-06-23T07:51:05+00:00 Signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem Pedersen, Eric J. Thompson, Patrick L. Ball, R. Aaron Fortin, Marie-Josée Gouhier, Tarik C. Link, Heike Moritz, Charlotte Nenzen, Hedvig Stanley, Ryan R. E. Taranu, Zofia E. Gonzalez, Andrew Guichard, Frédéric Pepin, Pierre Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science Canadian Fisheries Research Network Canadian Institute for Ecology and Evolution 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170215 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.170215 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsos.170215 en eng The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ Royal Society Open Science volume 4, issue 7, page 170215 ISSN 2054-5703 journal-article 2017 crroyalsociety https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170215 2024-06-10T04:15:11Z The Northwest Atlantic cod stocks collapsed in the early 1990s and have yet to recover, despite the subsequent establishment of a continuing fishing moratorium. Efforts to understand the collapse and lack of recovery have so far focused mainly on the dynamics of commercially harvested species. Here, we use data from a 33-year scientific trawl survey to determine to which degree the signatures of the collapse and recovery of the cod are apparent in the spatial and temporal dynamics of the broader groundfish community. Over this 33-year period, the groundfish community experienced four phases of change: (i) a period of rapid, synchronous biomass collapse in most species, (ii) followed by a regime shift in community composition with a concomitant loss of functional diversity, (iii) followed in turn by periods of slow compositional recovery, and (iv) slow biomass growth. Our results demonstrate how a community-wide perspective can reveal new aspects of the dynamics of collapse and recovery unavailable from the analysis of individual species or a combination of a small number of species. Overall, we found evidence that such community-level signals should be useful for designing more effective management strategies to ensure the persistence of exploited marine ecosystems. Article in Journal/Newspaper atlantic cod Northwest Atlantic The Royal Society Royal Society Open Science 4 7 170215
institution Open Polar
collection The Royal Society
op_collection_id crroyalsociety
language English
description The Northwest Atlantic cod stocks collapsed in the early 1990s and have yet to recover, despite the subsequent establishment of a continuing fishing moratorium. Efforts to understand the collapse and lack of recovery have so far focused mainly on the dynamics of commercially harvested species. Here, we use data from a 33-year scientific trawl survey to determine to which degree the signatures of the collapse and recovery of the cod are apparent in the spatial and temporal dynamics of the broader groundfish community. Over this 33-year period, the groundfish community experienced four phases of change: (i) a period of rapid, synchronous biomass collapse in most species, (ii) followed by a regime shift in community composition with a concomitant loss of functional diversity, (iii) followed in turn by periods of slow compositional recovery, and (iv) slow biomass growth. Our results demonstrate how a community-wide perspective can reveal new aspects of the dynamics of collapse and recovery unavailable from the analysis of individual species or a combination of a small number of species. Overall, we found evidence that such community-level signals should be useful for designing more effective management strategies to ensure the persistence of exploited marine ecosystems.
author2 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science
Canadian Fisheries Research Network
Canadian Institute for Ecology and Evolution
format Article in Journal/Newspaper
author Pedersen, Eric J.
Thompson, Patrick L.
Ball, R. Aaron
Fortin, Marie-Josée
Gouhier, Tarik C.
Link, Heike
Moritz, Charlotte
Nenzen, Hedvig
Stanley, Ryan R. E.
Taranu, Zofia E.
Gonzalez, Andrew
Guichard, Frédéric
Pepin, Pierre
spellingShingle Pedersen, Eric J.
Thompson, Patrick L.
Ball, R. Aaron
Fortin, Marie-Josée
Gouhier, Tarik C.
Link, Heike
Moritz, Charlotte
Nenzen, Hedvig
Stanley, Ryan R. E.
Taranu, Zofia E.
Gonzalez, Andrew
Guichard, Frédéric
Pepin, Pierre
Signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem
author_facet Pedersen, Eric J.
Thompson, Patrick L.
Ball, R. Aaron
Fortin, Marie-Josée
Gouhier, Tarik C.
Link, Heike
Moritz, Charlotte
Nenzen, Hedvig
Stanley, Ryan R. E.
Taranu, Zofia E.
Gonzalez, Andrew
Guichard, Frédéric
Pepin, Pierre
author_sort Pedersen, Eric J.
title Signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem
title_short Signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem
title_full Signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem
title_fullStr Signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem
title_full_unstemmed Signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem
title_sort signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem
publisher The Royal Society
publishDate 2017
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170215
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.170215
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsos.170215
genre atlantic cod
Northwest Atlantic
genre_facet atlantic cod
Northwest Atlantic
op_source Royal Society Open Science
volume 4, issue 7, page 170215
ISSN 2054-5703
op_rights https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/
op_doi https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170215
container_title Royal Society Open Science
container_volume 4
container_issue 7
container_start_page 170215
_version_ 1802642085943181312