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Key traits of functional biodiversity are examined for 31,134 species of fishes. These traits are maximum body weight, productivity, and trophic level. A new, simple framework is presented that shows the combined usage of these traits, in ordinal categories, for close to 90% of extant species of fishes. Most species are clustered tightly along an evolutionary axis in size-productivity-trophic space (SPT-space) from few large, evolutionary old species with very low productivity to many medium-sized newly evolved species with high productivity, superseding Cope’s rule of a within-lineages trend towards larger size and lower productivity. The across-lineages evolutionary axis is also found in the subsets of marine, freshwater, and Arctic species. Another notable prediction is the five-fold increase in top predators in Arctic waters in 2100, which could cause the extinction of endemic species. The main purpose of this study is to demonstrate the usefulness of the SPT-framework for comparing functional biodiversity patterns in ecosystems by salinity, geography or time. Also, the SPT-framework was used to explore correlations with other traits such as body shape, and to display the position of individual species, represented by pictograms of body shape and habitat, within SPT-space.

VII International Symposium on Marine Sciences (ISMS 2020), 1-3 July 2020 (Barcelona).-- 2 pages, There has been considerable effort to predict the impact of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the biophysical environment, biodiversity, and marine resources at regional and global scales. To further our understanding of how changes in the environment and marine resources will affect marine ecosystems, there is a need for advancing global integrated assessments. We improved a previously developed spatial-temporal ecosystem model of the global ocean (EcoOcean) (Christensen et al., 2015), spanning food web dynamics from primary producers to top predators, and including worldwide fisheries. We enhanced its ability to reproduce spatial-temporal ecosystem dynamics by linking spatial-temporal species dynamics and distributions to main environmental conditions that change under climate impact (e.g. primary production, sea surface temperature), accounting for varying species compositions of species groupings over time and space (Coll et al., submitted). The updated modelling platform was used to simulate past and future scenarios of climate change and fisheries, considering structural uncertainty and alternative input drivers using standardized outputs from Earth-System Models (ESMs) and contrasting emission scenarios using the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) for historical (1950-2005) and future (2006-2100) periods. Ecological aggregated indicators and biomass from species groupings were used to compare ecological predictions among scenarios following a standardized protocol (Tittensor et al., 2019; Lotze et al., 2019). Comparing results from scenarios with and without fishing allowed us to evaluate how climate-driven responses differed between fished and hypothetically non-fished oceans. The study sets a baseline to further develop global ocean analyses and contribute to the quantification of cumulative effects assessment of multiple stressors and plausible ocean-based solutions to global change, considering species, biodiversity and food-web spatial-temporal dynamics, This study received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS project)

The Arctic is warming at an unprecedented rate, with unknown consequences for endemic fauna. However, Earth has experienced severe climatic oscillations in the past, and understanding how species responded to them might provide insight into their resilience to near-future climatic predictions. Little is known about the responses of Arctic marine mammals to past climatic shifts, but narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are considered one of the endemic Arctic species most vulnerable to environmental change. Here, we analyse 121 complete mitochondrial genomes from narwhals sampled across their range and use them in combination with species distribution models to elucidate the influence of past and ongoing climatic shifts on their population structure and demographic history. We find low levels of genetic diversity and limited geographic structuring of genetic clades. We show that narwhals experienced a long-term low effective population size, which increased after the last glacial maximum, when the amount of suitable habitat expanded. Similar post-glacial habitat release has been a key driver of population size expansion of other Polar marine predators. Our analyses indicate that habitat availability has been critical to the success of narwhals, raising concerns for their fate in an increasingly warming Arctic.

The Arctic is warming at an unprecedented rate, with unknown consequences for endemic fauna. However, Earth has experienced severe climatic oscillations in the past, and understanding how species responded to them might provide insight into their resilience to near-future climatic predictions. Little is known about the responses of Arctic marine mammals to past climatic shifts, but narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are considered one of the endemic Arctic species most vulnerable to environmental change. Here, we analyse 121 complete mitochondrial genomes from narwhals sampled across their range and use them in combination with species distribution models to elucidate the influence of past and ongoing climatic shifts on their population structure and demographic history. We find low levels of genetic diversity and limited geographic structuring of genetic clades. We show that narwhals experienced a long-term low effective population size, which increased after the last glacial maximum, when the amount of suitable habitat expanded. Similar post-glacial habitat release has been a key driver of population size expansion of other Polar marine predators. Our analyses indicate that habitat availability has been critical to the success of narwhals, raising concerns for their fate in an increasingly warming Arctic.

ESKP-Themenspezial: Biodiversität, Der Ozean ist eine vielfältige Welt, in der schätzungsweise 230.000 bekannte Meeresarten leben. Und täglich werden neue Arten entdeckt. AquaMaps, ein globaler Meeresatlas, der unter der Leitung von GEOMAR entwickelt wurde und über 25.000 Arten umfasst, zeigt Biodiversitätsmuster weltweit. So beispielsweise die hohe Biodiversität in der Nähe des Äquators, welche exponentiell in Richtung der Pole abfällt. Sichtbar wird auch ein Hotspot der Biodiversität im malaiisch-philippinisch-indonesischen Dreieck.

Future Oceans2 Integrated Marine Biosphere Research (IMBeR) Open Science Conference, 17-21 June 2019, Brest, France, There has been considerable effort to predict the impact of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the biophysical environment and marine resources at regional and global scales. To further our understanding of how changes in the environment and marine resources will affect marine ecosystems, there is a need for global integrated assessments. We improved a previously developed spatial-temporal ecosystem model of the global ocean (EcoOcean), spanning food web dynamics from primary producers to top predators, and including worldwide fisheries. We recalibrated EcoOcean and enhanced its ability to reproduce spatial-temporal ecosystem dynamics by linking species productivity and distributions to main environmental conditions in flux under climate change (e.g. primary production, sea surface temperature, salinity, ice cover), accounting for varying species compositions of functional groups in time and space. The updated modelling platform was used to model past and future scenarios of climate change and fisheries, considering intrinsic input parameter uncertainty and alternative input drivers using standardized outputs from Earth-system models (ESM) and contrasting emission scenarios (RCPs) for historical (1950-2005) and future (2006-2100) periods. Standardized ecological indicators were used to compare changes in marine structure and functioning between scenarios. Comparing results from alternative environmental and management scenarios allowed evaluating how climate-driven responses differed. The study sets the baseline to further develop global ocean analyses and contribute to the quantification of cumulative effects assessment of multiple stressors and plausible ocean-based solutions to global change

Report about the outcome of four workshops in 2016, about the assessment of all European stocks