Large bio-geographical shifts in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean: From the subpolar gyre, via plankton, to blue whiting and pilot whales

Pronounced changes in fauna, extending from the English Channel in the south to the Barents Sea in the north-east and off Greenland in the north-west, have occurred in the late 1920s, the late 1960s and again in the late 1990s. We attribute these events to exchanges of subarctic and subtropical water masses in the north-eastern North Atlantic Ocean, associated with changes in the strength and extent of the subpolar gyre. These exchanges lead to variations in the influence exerted by the subarctic or Lusitanian biomes on the intermediate faunistic zone in the north-eastern Atlantic. This strong and persistent bottom-up bio-physical link is demonstrated using a numerical ocean general circulation model and data on four trophically connected levels in the food chain – phytoplankton, zooplankton, blue whiting, and pilot whales. The plankton data give a unique basin-scale depiction of these changes, and a long pilot whale record from the Faroe Islands offers an exceptional temporal perspective over three centuries. Recent advances in simulating the dynamics of the subpolar gyre suggests a potential for predicting the distribution of the main faunistic zones in the north-eastern Atlantic a few years into the future, which might facilitate a more rational management of the commercially important fisheries in this region.     

Monitoring considerations for a dynamic dune restoration project: Pacific Rim National Park Reserve,British Columbia,Canada.

Historically, management of coastal dune systems has often involved artificial stabilization of active sand surfaces in order for coastal areas to be more easily controlled and modified for human benefit. In North America, the introduction of invasive grasses, namely European and American beach (marram) grasses (Ammophila spp.) has been one of the most successful strategies used for stabilizing active coastal dune sands. Recent research has demonstrated, however, that stabilization of coastal dunes often leads to reduced landform complexity and resilience, as well as declines in species diversity. More ‘dynamic’ restoration efforts have emerged over the past 20 years that encourage dune mobility and aeolian activity in order to provide a more resilient biogeomorphic system. In North America, there is generally little research relating restoration methods and outcomes to geomorphic responses despite the fundamental importance of sedimentary processes and dune morphodynamics in broader ecosystem function. This paper aims to better situate dynamic dune restoration within current geomorphic understanding. A brief review of key terms and concepts used in the emerging field of dynamic dune restoration is provided and expanded upon with respect to geomorphologic considerations. A case study of a recent dynamic restoration effort in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, British Columbia, Canada is provide to demonstrate how these concepts are applied. Introduction of European marram at this site, coupled with a warming climate and increased precipitation in recent decades at this site, is thought to be associated with a rapid decline in aeolian activity, system stabilization and accelerated ecological succession. Preliminary results on the response of the dune system to mechanical removal of Ammophila are presented to provide the foundation for a research framework to guide the broader restoration project. Recommendations for improving treatment methodologies and monitoring protocols are provided to aid future restoration projects of this nature. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The North Sea regime shift: Evidence, causes, mechanisms and consequences

This paper focuses on the ecosystem regime shift in the North Sea that occurred during the period 1982–1988. The evidence for the change is seen from individual species to key ecosystem parameters such as diversity and from phytoplankton to fish. Although many biological/ecosystem parameters and individual species exhibited a stepwise change during the period 1983–1988, some indicators show no evidence of change. The cause of the regime shift is likely to be related to pronounced changes in large-scale hydro-meteorological forcing. This involved activating of complex intermediate physical mechanisms which explains why the exact timing of the shift can vary from 1982 to 1988 (centred around two periods: 1982–1985 and 1987–1988) according to the species or taxonomic group. Increased sea surface temperature and possibly change in wind intensity and direction at the end of the 1970s in the west European basin triggered a change in the location of an oceanic biogeographical boundary along the European continental shelf. This affected both the stable and substrate biotope components of North Sea marine ecosystems (i.e. components related to the water masses and components which are geographically stable) circa 1984. Large-scale hydro-climatic forcing also modified local hydro-meteorological parameters around the North Sea after 1987 affecting the stable biotope components of North Sea ecosystems. Problems related to the detection and quantification of an ecosystem regime shift are discussed.     

Early evaluation of coastal nutrient over-enrichment: new procedures and indicators

Recent studies have provided compelling evidence for an accelerated anthropogenic impact on coastal systems, resulting in intense inputs of materials and nutrients from the continent. This has led scientists and policymakers to encourage the implementation of monitoring programmes, which have resulted in the multiplicity of datasets. However surprisingly, only a few attempts have been made to couple observations with statistical and mathematical tools to detect, as soon as the data become available perturbations in coastal systems. Here, we propose new mathematical procedures to evaluate the state of a system, based on the building of relative reference state and indicators of nutrient over-enrichment. The techniques were tested in some French coastal systems using data from the programme SOMLIT. Applied to this dataset, the multivariate procedures rapidly identified and evaluated anthropogenic nutrient anomalies from the continent on three sites (Wimereux, Roscoff and Villefranche-sur-Mer) from 1997 onwards.     

Climate-Caused Abrupt Shifts in a European Macrotidal Estuary

Although many consequences of climate change on marine and terrestrial ecosystems are well documented, the characterisation of estuarine ecosystems specific responses and the drivers of the changes are less understood. In this study, we considered the biggest Southwestern European estuary, the Gironde, as a model of a macrotidal estuary to assess the effects of both large- (i.e., North Atlantic basin-scale) and regional-scale climate changes. Using a unique set of data on climatic, physical, chemical and biological parameters for the period 1978–2009, we examined relations between changes in both the physical and chemical environments and pelagic communities (plankton and fish) via an end-to-end approach. Our results show that the estuary experienced two abrupt shifts (～1987 and ～2000) over the last three decades, which altered the whole system. The timing of these abrupt shifts are in accordance with abrupt shifts reported in both marine (e.g., in the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and along the Atlantic) and terrestrial (e.g., in European lakes) realms. Although this work does not allow a full understanding of the dynamical processes through which climate effects propagate along the different compartments of the ecosystem, it provides evidence that the dynamics of the largest estuary of Southwest Europe is strongly modulated by climate change at both regional and global scales.     

Detecting regime shifts in the ocean: Data considerations

We review observational data sets that have been used to detect regime shifts in the ocean. Through exploration of data time series we develop a definition of a regime shift from a pragmatic perspective, in which a shift is considered as an abrupt change from a quantifiable ecosystem state. We conclude that such changes represent a restructuring of the ecosystem state in some substantial sense that persists for long enough that a new quasi-equilibrium state can be observed. The abruptness of the shift is relative to the life-scale or the reproductive time-scale of the higher predators that are influenced by the shift. In general, the event-forcing is external to the biological ecosystem, usually the physical climate system, but we also identify shifts that can be ascribed to anthropogenic forcing, in our examples fishing. This pragmatic definition allows for several different types of regime shift ranging from simple biogeographic shifts to non-linear state changes. In practice it is quite difficult to determine whether observed changes in an oceanic ecosystem are primarily spatial or temporally regulated. The determination of ecosystem state remains an unresolved, and imprecise, oceanographic problem.We review observations and interpretation from several different oceanic regions as examples to illustrate this pragmatic definition of a regime shift: the Northeast Pacific, the Northwest and Northeast Atlantic, and Eastern Boundary Currents. For each region, different types of data (biological and physical) are available for differing periods of time, and we conclude, with varying degrees of certainty, whether a regime shift is in fact detectable in the data.     

Macrophysiology of Calanus finmarchicus in the North Atlantic Ocean

Copepods represent the major part of the dry weight of the mesozooplankton in pelagic ecosystems and therefore have a central role in the secondary production of the North Atlantic Ocean. The calanoid copepod species Calanus finmarchicus is the main large copepod in subarctic waters of the North Atlantic, dominating the dry weight of the mesozooplankton in regions such as the northern North Sea and the Norwegian Sea. The objective of this work was to investigate the relationships between both the fundamental and realised niches of C. finmarchicus in order to better understand the future influence of global climate change on the abundance, the spatial distribution and the phenology of this key-structural species. Based on standardised Principal Component Analyses (PCAs), a macroecological approach was applied to determine factors affecting the spatial distribution of C. finmarchicus and to characterise its realised niche. Second, an ecophysiological model was used to calculate the Potential Egg Production Rate (PEPR) of C. finmarchicus and the centre of its fundamental niche. Relationships between the two niches were then investigated by correlation analysis. We found a close relationship between the fundamental and realised niches of C. finmarchicus at spatial, monthly and decadal scales. While the species is at the centre of its niche in the subarctic gyre, our joint macroecological and macrophysiological analyses show that it is at the edge of its niche in the North Sea, making the species in this region more vulnerable to temperature changes.     

An overview of statistical methods applied to CPR data

Since the beginning of the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey in 1931, information on the abundance of a large number of plankton species or taxa has been obtained on a monthly basis in the northern North Atlantic. The many different ecological issues in which the survey has been involved have led to the application of a range of statistical methods. In this paper, we review some of the methods applied to the CPR data by presenting new and up-to-date analyses. Special attention is devoted to multivariate analysis, which has been used extensively to extract information from the CPR database. Results obtained from recently applied geostatistical methods on CPR data are then considered. An example of a time series decomposition by the use of Eigenvector filtering is presented to illustrate time-series analysis.