Opening the tap: Increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways
Reduction of ecosystem connectivity has long-lasting impacts on food webs. Anadromous fish, which migrate from marine to freshwater ecosystems to complete reproduction, have seen their historically larger ecosystem role undercut by widespread riverine habitat fragmentation and other impacts mainly d...
Published in: | PLOS ONE |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Public Library of Science
2019
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6532889/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31120934 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217008 |
id |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6532889 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6532889 2023-05-15T15:27:46+02:00 Opening the tap: Increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways Dias, Beatriz S. Frisk, Michael G. Jordaan, Adrian 2019-05-23 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6532889/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31120934 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217008 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6532889/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31120934 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217008 © 2019 Dias et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 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 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217008 2019-06-09T00:17:38Z Reduction of ecosystem connectivity has long-lasting impacts on food webs. Anadromous fish, which migrate from marine to freshwater ecosystems to complete reproduction, have seen their historically larger ecosystem role undercut by widespread riverine habitat fragmentation and other impacts mainly derived from anthropogenic sources. The result has been extensive extirpations and increased susceptibility to a suite of environmental factors that currently impede recovery. Under this present-day context of reduced productivity and connectivity, aggressive management actions and enforcement of catch limits including bycatch caps and complete moratoria on harvest have followed. What remains less understood are the implications of changes to food webs that co-occurred. What benefits restoration could provide in terms of ecosystem functioning in relation to economic costs associated with dam removal and remediation is unknown and can limit the scope and value of restoration activities. Here we employ, historical landscape-based biomass estimates of anadromous alosine for the first time in an ecosystem modeling of the Northeast US large marine ecosystem (LME), to evaluate the value of improving connectivity by measuring the increase in energy flow and population productivity. We compared a restored alosine model to a contemporary model, analyzing the impacts of the potential increase of connectivity between riverine and oceanic systems. There was the potential for a moderate biomass increase of piscivorous species with high economic value, including Atlantic cod, and for a major increase for species of conservation concern such as pelagic sharks, seabirds and marine mammals. Our study highlights the benefits of increased connectivity between freshwater and ocean ecosystems. We demonstrate the significant role anadromous forage fish could play in improving specific fisheries and overall ecosystem functioning, mainly through the diversification of species capable of transferring primary production to upper trophic levels, ... Text atlantic cod PubMed Central (PMC) PLOS ONE 14 5 e0217008 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Research Article |
spellingShingle |
Research Article Dias, Beatriz S. Frisk, Michael G. Jordaan, Adrian Opening the tap: Increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Reduction of ecosystem connectivity has long-lasting impacts on food webs. Anadromous fish, which migrate from marine to freshwater ecosystems to complete reproduction, have seen their historically larger ecosystem role undercut by widespread riverine habitat fragmentation and other impacts mainly derived from anthropogenic sources. The result has been extensive extirpations and increased susceptibility to a suite of environmental factors that currently impede recovery. Under this present-day context of reduced productivity and connectivity, aggressive management actions and enforcement of catch limits including bycatch caps and complete moratoria on harvest have followed. What remains less understood are the implications of changes to food webs that co-occurred. What benefits restoration could provide in terms of ecosystem functioning in relation to economic costs associated with dam removal and remediation is unknown and can limit the scope and value of restoration activities. Here we employ, historical landscape-based biomass estimates of anadromous alosine for the first time in an ecosystem modeling of the Northeast US large marine ecosystem (LME), to evaluate the value of improving connectivity by measuring the increase in energy flow and population productivity. We compared a restored alosine model to a contemporary model, analyzing the impacts of the potential increase of connectivity between riverine and oceanic systems. There was the potential for a moderate biomass increase of piscivorous species with high economic value, including Atlantic cod, and for a major increase for species of conservation concern such as pelagic sharks, seabirds and marine mammals. Our study highlights the benefits of increased connectivity between freshwater and ocean ecosystems. We demonstrate the significant role anadromous forage fish could play in improving specific fisheries and overall ecosystem functioning, mainly through the diversification of species capable of transferring primary production to upper trophic levels, ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Dias, Beatriz S. Frisk, Michael G. Jordaan, Adrian |
author_facet |
Dias, Beatriz S. Frisk, Michael G. Jordaan, Adrian |
author_sort |
Dias, Beatriz S. |
title |
Opening the tap: Increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways |
title_short |
Opening the tap: Increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways |
title_full |
Opening the tap: Increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways |
title_fullStr |
Opening the tap: Increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways |
title_full_unstemmed |
Opening the tap: Increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways |
title_sort |
opening the tap: increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6532889/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31120934 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217008 |
genre |
atlantic cod |
genre_facet |
atlantic cod |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6532889/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31120934 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217008 |
op_rights |
© 2019 Dias et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 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. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217008 |
container_title |
PLOS ONE |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
5 |
container_start_page |
e0217008 |
_version_ |
1766358177363787776 |