Effects of Whaling on the Structure of the Southern Ocean Food Web: Insights on the “Krill Surplus” from Ecosystem Modelling

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Authors: Surma, Szymon, Pakhomov, Evgeny A., Pitcher, Tony J.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science 2014
• Subjects: Research Article; Antarctic; Rorqual; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4269391; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25517505; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0114978

The aim of this study was to examine the ecological plausibility of the “krill surplus” hypothesis and the effects of whaling on the Southern Ocean food web using mass-balance ecosystem modelling. The depletion trajectory and unexploited biomass of each rorqual population in the Antarctic was recons...