A Historical Plankton Index: Zooplankton abundance in the North Sea since 800 CE ...

• Main Authors: Scherer, Cordula, Ludlow, Francis, Matthews, Al, Hayes, Patrick, Klais, Riina, Holm, Poul
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: SAGE Journals 2024
• Subjects: Geography; History; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25384/sage.c.7132436.v1; https://sage.figshare.com/collections/A_Historical_Plankton_Index_Zooplankton_abundance_in_the_North_Sea_since_800_CE/7132436/1

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 ...