A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE
The North Sea region boasted one of the world’s most important fisheries for many centuries. Climate directly and indirectly influences the development and survival of many important pelagic fish in the North Sea ecosystem. One indirect influence is the food availability in the form of phyto- and zo...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09596836241236332 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/09596836241236332 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/09596836241236332 |
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crsagepubl:10.1177/09596836241236332 2024-04-28T08:31:16+00:00 A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE Scherer, Cordula Ludlow, Francis Matthews, Al Hayes, Patrick Klais, Riina Holm, Poul 2024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09596836241236332 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/09596836241236332 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/09596836241236332 en eng SAGE Publications https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Holocene ISSN 0959-6836 1477-0911 Paleontology Earth-Surface Processes Ecology Archeology Global and Planetary Change journal-article 2024 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836241236332 2024-04-02T08:14:54Z The North Sea region boasted one of the world’s most important fisheries for many centuries. Climate directly and indirectly influences the development and survival of many important pelagic fish in the North Sea ecosystem. One indirect influence is the food availability in the form of phyto- and zooplankton abundance, which is strongly controlled by environmental factors. One of these environmental factors is local sea surface temperatures. A negative correlation between zooplankton abundance and sea surface temperature is well established for the epeiric sea on the European continental shelf. Continuous temporal observations of North Sea zooplankton production only exist since 1958. Therefore we developed a Historical Plankton Index (HPI) from 800 CE onwards to extend our record of temperature-driven zooplankton abundance in the North Sea over a multi-centennial time scale. For this we used the North Atlantic temperature reconstructions and associations between zooplankton abundance and contemporary sea surface temperatures established applying a General Additive Modelling (GAM) approach. We then examined the association between the HPI and historical landings from the Dutch commercial herring fishery in the 17th century to test the utility of our HPI. We examine the potential influence of food availability (in terms of zooplankton abundance) on the fishery, the evolution of which is often only considered in terms of human influences such as conflict, fishing gear and demand for fish as a commodity. We find that under certain conditions the HPI can explain 20% of the variability in Dutch herring landings. This highlights the importance of developing long-term and large-scale indices of natural marine ecosystem dynamics to understand the historical fortunes of the commercial fishing industry. The results are directly relevant to the United Nations’ sustainable development goal 14 – life below water. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic SAGE Publications The Holocene |
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collection |
SAGE Publications |
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language |
English |
topic |
Paleontology Earth-Surface Processes Ecology Archeology Global and Planetary Change |
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Paleontology Earth-Surface Processes Ecology Archeology Global and Planetary Change Scherer, Cordula Ludlow, Francis Matthews, Al Hayes, Patrick Klais, Riina Holm, Poul A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE |
topic_facet |
Paleontology Earth-Surface Processes Ecology Archeology Global and Planetary Change |
description |
The North Sea region boasted one of the world’s most important fisheries for many centuries. Climate directly and indirectly influences the development and survival of many important pelagic fish in the North Sea ecosystem. One indirect influence is the food availability in the form of phyto- and zooplankton abundance, which is strongly controlled by environmental factors. One of these environmental factors is local sea surface temperatures. A negative correlation between zooplankton abundance and sea surface temperature is well established for the epeiric sea on the European continental shelf. Continuous temporal observations of North Sea zooplankton production only exist since 1958. Therefore we developed a Historical Plankton Index (HPI) from 800 CE onwards to extend our record of temperature-driven zooplankton abundance in the North Sea over a multi-centennial time scale. For this we used the North Atlantic temperature reconstructions and associations between zooplankton abundance and contemporary sea surface temperatures established applying a General Additive Modelling (GAM) approach. We then examined the association between the HPI and historical landings from the Dutch commercial herring fishery in the 17th century to test the utility of our HPI. We examine the potential influence of food availability (in terms of zooplankton abundance) on the fishery, the evolution of which is often only considered in terms of human influences such as conflict, fishing gear and demand for fish as a commodity. We find that under certain conditions the HPI can explain 20% of the variability in Dutch herring landings. This highlights the importance of developing long-term and large-scale indices of natural marine ecosystem dynamics to understand the historical fortunes of the commercial fishing industry. The results are directly relevant to the United Nations’ sustainable development goal 14 – life below water. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Scherer, Cordula Ludlow, Francis Matthews, Al Hayes, Patrick Klais, Riina Holm, Poul |
author_facet |
Scherer, Cordula Ludlow, Francis Matthews, Al Hayes, Patrick Klais, Riina Holm, Poul |
author_sort |
Scherer, Cordula |
title |
A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE |
title_short |
A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE |
title_full |
A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE |
title_fullStr |
A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE |
title_sort |
historical plankton index: zooplankton abundance in the north sea since 800 ce |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2024 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09596836241236332 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/09596836241236332 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/09596836241236332 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
The Holocene ISSN 0959-6836 1477-0911 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836241236332 |
container_title |
The Holocene |
_version_ |
1797588868249157632 |