Back to Search
Start Over
Multiple configurations and fluctuating trophic control in the Barents Sea food-web.
- Source :
-
PloS one [PLoS One] 2021 Jul 09; Vol. 16 (7), pp. e0254015. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Jul 09 (Print Publication: 2021). - Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- The Barents Sea is a subarctic shelf sea which has experienced major changes during the past decades. From ecological time-series, three different food-web configurations, reflecting successive shifts of dominance of pelagic fish, demersal fish, and zooplankton, as well as varying trophic control have been identified in the last decades. This covers a relatively short time-period as available ecological time-series are often relatively short. As we lack information for prior time-periods, we use a chance and necessity model to investigate if there are other possible configurations of the Barents Sea food-web than those observed in the ecological time-series, and if this food-web is characterized by a persistent trophic control. We perform food-web simulations using the Non-Deterministic Network Dynamic model (NDND) for the Barents Sea, identify food-web configurations and compare those to historical reconstructions of food-web dynamics. Biomass configurations fall into four major types and three trophic pathways. Reconstructed data match one of the major biomass configurations but is characterized by a different trophic pathway than most of the simulated configurations. The simulated biomass displays fluctuations between bottom-up and top-down trophic control over time rather than persistent trophic control. Our results show that the configurations we have reconstructed are strongly overlapping with our simulated configurations, though they represent only a subset of the possible configurations of the Barents Sea food-web.<br />Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1932-6203
- Volume :
- 16
- Issue :
- 7
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- PloS one
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 34242282
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254015