Quantifying marine population and ecosystem recovery dynamics under climate change

了解面临开发和气候变化的大型海洋生态系统的动态仍然是海洋生态学的主要挑战之一，对渔业管理和沿海社区的经济福利具有直接影响。然而，对于观察到的西北大西洋海洋生态系统的状态，或者枯竭种群的可变重建速度，仍然没有全面的解释。这表明现有的人口和生态系统模型缺少关键的生态或行为机制。以纽芬兰和拉布拉多的海洋生态系统为重点，拟议的合作研究将致力于这些机制，以实现该小组的共同长期目标，即提供关键的中上层和底栖鱼类以及无脊椎动物的预测种群和生态系统模型。在个体和种群层面，将利用实验和调查数据量化商业鱼类和无脊椎动物交配系统的影响以及濒危海洋物种的生活史变异性，同时将使用对海洋鱼类耳骨的新化学分析来重建个别鱼类过去的摄食和栖息地使用情况。在食物网一级，不同的猎物生产率对顶级捕食者恢复的潜在作用，物种之间的空间重叠受海洋条件变化的不同影响，以及局部水温差异是否影响生态系统之间食物网相互作用的弹性，将为物种相互作用的重要性以及气候调节这些相互作用的程度提供新的见解。最后，将在寻求将气候强迫、人口动态和生态系统功能联系起来的生态理论的背景下，对气候对亚北极生态系统的强烈影响的影响进行实证检验。枯竭的鱼类种群和生态系统代表着潜在的渔业和经济生产力。这项研究将有助于扩大基于生态系统的渔业管理领域，预计这将在未来的海洋管理决策和政策方向中发挥越来越大的作用。

Understanding the dynamics of large marine ecosystems faced with exploitation and climate variability remains one of the key challenges within marine ecology, with direct implications for fisheries management and the economic welfare of coastal communities. Yet there remains no comprehensive explanation for the observed state of Northwest Atlantic marine ecosystems, or the variable rebuilding rates of depleted stocks. This indicates that existing population and ecosystem models are missing key ecological or behavioural mechanisms. With a focus on marine ecosystems of Newfoundland and Labrador, it is these mechanisms that the proposed collaborative research will pursue towards the team's shared long-term goal of providing predictive population and ecosystem models of key pelagic and benthic fish species, and invertebrates. At the individual and population levels, both the implications of commercial fish and invertebrate mating systems and the life-history variability of marine species at-risk will be quantified using experiments and survey data, while novel chemical analyses of marine fish ear bones will be used to reconstruct past feeding and habitat use by individual fishes. At the food web level, the potential roles of variable rates of prey production constraining the recovery of top predators, spatial overlap between species differentially influenced by changing oceanographic conditions, and whether local water temperature differences influence the resilience of food web interactions as in comparisons among ecosystems, will provide novel insights on the importance of species interactions, and the extent that climate mediates these interactions. Finally, the implications of strong climate influences on sub-Arctic ecosystems will be tested empirically, in the context of an ecological theory that seeks to link climate forcing, population dynamics and ecosystem functioning. Depleted fish stocks and ecosystems represent latent fisheries and economic productivity. This research will contribute to the expanding field of ecosystem-based fisheries management, which is expected to play an increasing role in future marine management decisions and policy directions.