The trophic fingerprint of marine fisheries

Branch, Trevor A.; Watson, Reg; Fulton, Elizabeth A.; Jennings, Simon; McGilliard, Carey R.; Pablico, Grace T.; Ricard, D.; Tracey, S

doi:10.1038/nature09528

Cited by 298 publications

(275 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…This agrees with the findings in ref. 23 that TL estimates have substantial uncertainty and that catch MTL is a poor biodiversity indicator for marine ecosystems. Our results extend the argument beyond marine environments and are conveniently available from a single empirical analysis applied to each of a small number of webs.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A unifying approach for food webs, phylogeny, social networks, and statistics

Chiu

Westveld²

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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A food web consists of nodes, each consisting of one or more species. The role of each node as predator or prey determines the trophic relations that weave the web. Much effort in trophic food web research is given to understand the connectivity structure, or the nature and degree of dependence among nodes. Social network analysis (SNA) techniques—quantitative methods commonly used in the social sciences to understand network relational structure—have been used for this purpose, although postanalysis effort or biological theory is still required to determine what natural factors contribute to the feeding behavior. Thus, a conventional SNA alone provides limited insight into trophic structure. Here we show that by using novel statistical modeling methodologies to express network links as the random response of within- and internode characteristics (predictors), we gain a much deeper understanding of food web structure and its contributing factors through a unified statistical SNA. We do so for eight empirical food webs: Phylogeny is shown to have nontrivial influence on trophic relations in many webs, and for each web trophic clustering based on feeding activity and on feeding preference can differ substantially. These and other conclusions about network features are purely empirical, based entirely on observed network attributes while accounting for biological information built directly into the model. Thus, statistical SNA techniques, through statistical inference for feeding activity and preference, provide an alternative perspective of trophic clustering to yield comprehensive insight into food web structure.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A unifying approach for food webs, phylogeny, social networks, and statistics

Chiu

Westveld²

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Research on the interplay between food-web structure and ecosystem function can provide managers with a powerful tool to understand, predict, and manage ecosystems experiencing multiple competing demands and environmental perturbations. In some cases a food-web approach has already been effectively applied: for instance in marine fisheries management [75,80] and in studies of functional consequences of anthropogenic impacts on stream and river ecosystems [89] (Box 2).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Food webs have not yet been used as indices of degradation, in a systematic sense. However, particularly in marine environments, we are well positioned to apply food webs in this way [80].…”

Section: Emerging Trends and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food webs: reconciling the structure and function of biodiversity

Thompson

Brose

Dunne

et al. 2012

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

556

500

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The global biodiversity crisis concerns not only unprecedented loss of species within communities, but also related consequences for ecosystem function. Community ecology focuses on patterns of species richness and community composition, whereas ecosystem ecology focuses on fluxes of energy and materials. Food webs provide a quantitative framework to combine these approaches and unify the study of biodiversity and ecosystem function. We summarise the progression of foodweb ecology and the challenges in using the food-web approach. We identify five areas of research where these advances can continue, and be applied to global challenges. Finally, we describe what data are needed in the next generation of food-web studies to reconcile the structure and function of biodiversity.Reconciling the study of biodiversity and ecosystem function We are experiencing two interrelated global ecological crises. One is in biodiversity, with unprecedented rates of species loss across all major ecosystems, combined with greatly accelerated biotic exchange between landmasses [1]. Consequently, spatial and temporal patterns of species occurrence are being fundamentally altered by extinction and invasion. The second crisis concerns the regulation of ecological processes and the ecosystem services they provide. Processes such as primary production and nutrient cycling have been severely altered by human activities [1].Our understanding of biodiversity comes largely from a sound theoretical and empirical basis provided by community ecology, including core concepts such as niche segregation [2] and Island Biogeography [3,4]. Early studies of individual species' habitat preferences and physiological tolerances have been complemented by studies of interspecific interactions from field surveys and experiments. Applications such as conservation management depend largely on mapping of community patterns and studies of habitat occupancy and preferences. More recently, habitat models have been applied, and the advent of simple and cheap molecular markers has allowed quantification of important community assembly (see Glossary) processes such as dispersal [5]. In community ecology the unit of study is the individual, population, or species, consistent with other sub-disciplines such as behavioural and population biology. Review GlossaryAssembly: the set of processes by which a food web is rebuilt after disturbance or the creation of new habitat. Bioenergetics: the flow and transformation of energy in and between living organisms and between living organisms and their environment. Cascade model: a food-web model which assumes hierarchical feeding along a single niche axis, with each species allocated a probability of feeding on taxa below it in the hierarchy. Community web: a food web intended to include all species and trophic links that occur within a defined ecological community. 'Species' in this sense might involve various degrees of aggregation or division of biological species. Compartmentalisation: the property by which one subset of sp...

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“…Previous studies have noted that selective overharvesting of top predators may compound effects of habitat loss on predator richness 8 . In marine ecosystems, disproportionate fishing pressure on top predators (that is, 'fishing down food webs') is well documented [35][36][37] , although local anthropogenic extinctions are seldom described in reef fish systems. In Supplementary Methods, we explore whether fishing pressure on top predators alone can account for the patterns of reef fish predator-prey ratio described above.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Larval dispersal drives trophic structure across Pacific coral reefs

et al. 2014

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Top predators are a critical part of healthy ecosystems. Yet, these species are often absent from spatially isolated habitats leading to the pervasive view that fragmented ecological communities collapse from the top down. Here we study reef fish from coral reef communities across the Pacific Ocean. Our analysis shows that species richness of reef fish top predators is relatively stable across habitats that vary widely in spatial isolation and total species richness. In contrast, species richness of prey reef fish declines rapidly with increasing isolation. By consequence, species-poor communities from isolated islands have three times as many predator species per prey species as near-shore communities. We develop and test a colonization-extinction model to reveal how larval dispersal patterns shape this ocean-scale gradient in trophic structure.

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The trophic fingerprint of marine fisheries

Cited by 298 publications

References 28 publications

A unifying approach for food webs, phylogeny, social networks, and statistics

A unifying approach for food webs, phylogeny, social networks, and statistics

Food webs: reconciling the structure and function of biodiversity

Larval dispersal drives trophic structure across Pacific coral reefs

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