A comparison of biological trends from four marine ecosystems: Synchronies, differences, and commonalities

Major features of four marine ecosystems were analyzed based on a broad range of fisheries-associated datasets and a suite of oceanographic surveys. The ecosystems analyzed included the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, the Norwegian/Barents Seas in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, and the eastern Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. We examined survey trends in major fish abundances, total system fish biomass, and zooplankton biomasses. We standardized each time series and examined trends and anomalies over time, using both time series and cross-correlational statistical methods. We compared dynamics of functionally analogous species from each of these four ecosystems. Major commonalities among ecosystems included a relatively stable amount of total fish biomass and the importance of large calanoid copepods, small pelagic fishes and gadids. Some of the changes in these components were synchronous across ecosystems. Major differences between ecosystems included gradients in the magnitude of total fish biomass, commercial fish biomass, and the timing of major detected events. This work demonstrates the value of comparative analysis across a wide range of marine ecosystems, suggestive of very few but none-the-less detectable common features across all northern hemisphere ocean systems.