Bottom-Up Regulation of Capelin, a Keystone Forage Species
The Northwest Atlantic marine ecosystem off Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, has been commercially exploited for centuries. Although periodic declines in various important commercial fish stocks have been observed in this ecosystem, the most drastic changes took place in the early 1990s when the e...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3913657 2023-05-15T17:22:19+02:00 Bottom-Up Regulation of Capelin, a Keystone Forage Species Buren, Alejandro D. Koen-Alonso, Mariano Pepin, Pierre Mowbray, Fran Nakashima, Brian Stenson, Garry Ollerhead, Neil Montevecchi, William A. 2014-02-04 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3913657 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087589 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3913657 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087589 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2014 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087589 2014-02-09T01:49:08Z The Northwest Atlantic marine ecosystem off Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, has been commercially exploited for centuries. Although periodic declines in various important commercial fish stocks have been observed in this ecosystem, the most drastic changes took place in the early 1990s when the ecosystem structure changed abruptly and has not returned to its previous configuration. In the Northwest Atlantic, food web dynamics are determined largely by capelin (Mallotus villosus), the focal forage species which links primary and secondary producers with the higher trophic levels. Notwithstanding the importance of capelin, the factors that influence its population dynamics have remained elusive. We found that a regime shift and ocean climate, acting via food availability, have discernible impacts on the regulation of this population. Capelin biomass and timing of spawning were well explained by a regime shift and seasonal sea ice dynamics, a key determinant of the pelagic spring bloom. Our findings are important for the development of ecosystem approaches to fisheries management and raise questions on the potential impacts of climate change on the structure and productivity of this marine ecosystem. Text Newfoundland Northwest Atlantic Sea ice PubMed Central (PMC) Canada Newfoundland PLoS ONE 9 2 e87589 |
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Research Article Buren, Alejandro D. Koen-Alonso, Mariano Pepin, Pierre Mowbray, Fran Nakashima, Brian Stenson, Garry Ollerhead, Neil Montevecchi, William A. Bottom-Up Regulation of Capelin, a Keystone Forage Species |
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Research Article |
description |
The Northwest Atlantic marine ecosystem off Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, has been commercially exploited for centuries. Although periodic declines in various important commercial fish stocks have been observed in this ecosystem, the most drastic changes took place in the early 1990s when the ecosystem structure changed abruptly and has not returned to its previous configuration. In the Northwest Atlantic, food web dynamics are determined largely by capelin (Mallotus villosus), the focal forage species which links primary and secondary producers with the higher trophic levels. Notwithstanding the importance of capelin, the factors that influence its population dynamics have remained elusive. We found that a regime shift and ocean climate, acting via food availability, have discernible impacts on the regulation of this population. Capelin biomass and timing of spawning were well explained by a regime shift and seasonal sea ice dynamics, a key determinant of the pelagic spring bloom. Our findings are important for the development of ecosystem approaches to fisheries management and raise questions on the potential impacts of climate change on the structure and productivity of this marine ecosystem. |
format |
Text |
author |
Buren, Alejandro D. Koen-Alonso, Mariano Pepin, Pierre Mowbray, Fran Nakashima, Brian Stenson, Garry Ollerhead, Neil Montevecchi, William A. |
author_facet |
Buren, Alejandro D. Koen-Alonso, Mariano Pepin, Pierre Mowbray, Fran Nakashima, Brian Stenson, Garry Ollerhead, Neil Montevecchi, William A. |
author_sort |
Buren, Alejandro D. |
title |
Bottom-Up Regulation of Capelin, a Keystone Forage Species |
title_short |
Bottom-Up Regulation of Capelin, a Keystone Forage Species |
title_full |
Bottom-Up Regulation of Capelin, a Keystone Forage Species |
title_fullStr |
Bottom-Up Regulation of Capelin, a Keystone Forage Species |
title_full_unstemmed |
Bottom-Up Regulation of Capelin, a Keystone Forage Species |
title_sort |
bottom-up regulation of capelin, a keystone forage species |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3913657 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087589 |
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Canada Newfoundland |
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Canada Newfoundland |
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Newfoundland Northwest Atlantic Sea ice |
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Newfoundland Northwest Atlantic Sea ice |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3913657 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087589 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087589 |
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PLoS ONE |
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9 |
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e87589 |
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