Bottom-up drivers of global patterns of demersal, forage, and pelagic fishes

Abstract

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Primary production and depth drive different trophic structure and functioning of fish assemblages in French marine ecosystems

“…Pelagic production is not sufficient to support a high secondary production, explaining the lowest biomass recorded for the assemblage. The truncation of the food web and the predominance of small pelagic species is consistent with theoretical expectations in oligotrophic ecosystems (Petrik et al, 2019). The predominance of zooplankton feeding species is also classical in the Gulf of Lions.…”

“…Interestingly, empirical results observed here showed similar patterns to outputs of a model forced by mechanistic energy transfer rules and applied to two case studies, i.e. a shelf system in the Bering Sea with high benthic and pelagic productions and an oligotrophic gyre in Hawaii (Petrik et al, 2019). This consistency is another argument in favor of a strong driving effect of flux intensity on the fish assemblage structure.…”

“…In addition, the vast majority of studies investigating the links between primary production and fish production and/or fisheries yields overlooked fish assemblage structure (e.g. Udy et al 2019;Ware and Thomson, 2005), despite the recent demonstration that including functional attributes (e.g separating benthic or pelagic piscivores) can be a powerful method to understand the links between primary production and fish biomass (Cresson et al, 2019;Petrik et al, 2019;Stock et al, 2017;van Denderen et al, 2018). The simultaneous collection of quantitative (i.e.…”

“…In a global context of complex and cumulative human pressures on marine ecosystems (Halpern et al, 2019), an integrated assessment of trophic interactions over several trophic levels is still a central point of fundamental research on current functioning and also an urgent need as a basis for forecasting future alterations and implementing sustainable management practices. Inflow of energy at the base of food webs drives marine system functioning (Chassot et al 2010), but the connection between basal energy and fish biomass or fisheries yield is not straightforward (Petrik et al, 2019;Ware and Thomson, 2005). Trophodynamics, i.e.…”

“…Trophodynamics, i.e. how energy and nutrients flow between different levels of the food web, largely shapes the organization of marine communities and associated ecosystem services (Petrik et al, 2019;Trebilco et al, 2013;Udy et al, 2019;van Denderen et al, 2018).…”