| 1. |
- Ammar, Yosr, 1992-
(författare)
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Novelty in social-ecological systems: understanding the past to plan the future
- 2020
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Human activities are shaping the Earth system and creating novel properties in the intertwined Social-Ecological Systems (SES). Although novelty is acknowledged in SES theories, the concept of novelty is not well understood, and little mathematical formalization and empirical foundations have been made. Building on the theoretical frameworks of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and concepts of novelty in ecology, this licentiate thesis suggests a first attempt to quantify novelty in a marine ecosystem, in a SES context. Here, I focus on the past emergence of novelty in a marine SES to better understand when and where novelty has emerged and which drivers affect this emergence. Novelty emerges in a CAS when it has moved beyond its historical range of variation. The historical state depends on the temporal and spatial scale as well as the context of the study. Building on the characteristics of CAS, novelty is multidimensional, emerges on a continuum, can be nonlinear, and follows baseline specific trajectories. It has been quantified as the degree of dissimilarity of a system relative to a specific baseline. I used the case of the Baltic Sea SES, where long-term data exists, and many ecological, political, and economic changes have been recorded. Here, I focus on structural changes of the system rather than interactions and feedbacks. Paper 1 focuses on the ecological novelty in the Baltic Sea and contributes as the first study that quantifies novelty in marine ecosystems and across different trophic levels. Results reveal that over the 35-year study-period (1980-2015), novelty has emerged following the pattern of change, but at a slower pace. It has emerged in complex temporal and spatial pattern of the tested abiotic and biotic components. Both abiotic and biotic novelty showed a higher rate of novelty in confined northern basins than in the Central Baltic Sea, which indicated that some areas are more susceptible to the rise of novelty than others. Temperature and salinity were identified as the main abiotic drivers of biotic novelty in the Baltic Sea. Paper 2 contributes as the first study to quantify socio-economic novelty in a marine SES. Socio-economic novelty in the Baltic Sea showed a change in the contribution to novelty from factors linked to local and regional management levels, i.e., fishing gears and commercial groups, to trades which are linked to international level. A high increase in imports and exports in recent years marked the fastest increase in novelty over the period studied. In the latter, novelty in terms of economic value of fishery products was higher than their novelty in quantity. Sweden, Denmark, and Poland have been the countries contributing most to the emergence of novelty in the studied period. This paper illustrates that understanding socio-economic novelty together with ecological novelty, may provide a better understanding of the complexity of marine SES. Although not all the characteristics of CAS could be captured by the methodological approach used in Paper 1 and 2, many have been identified and considered. However, this highlights the need for more methods that can capture different characteristics of CAS, such as interactions and feedbacks, and more knowledge on the emergence of novelty in SES. Understanding how novelty emerges, its processes in different SES components and across-scales, may reduce the risk of missing opportunities for biodiversity conservation, and of unintended management outcomes for long-term sustainability.
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| 2. |
- Ammar, Yosr, et al.
(författare)
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Quantifying socio-economic novelty in fisheries social-ecological systems
- 2022
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Ingår i: Fish and Fisheries. - : Wiley. - 1467-2960 .- 1467-2979. ; 23:2, s. 445-461
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Socio-economic development has shaped fisheries social-ecological systems (SES) worldwide across different scales. No work has yet undertaken how this development led to novel, not experienced before, systems structure in marine SES. Here, we quantify socio-economic novelty as the degree of dissimilarity relative to a specific spatiotemporal baseline in the Baltic Sea fisheries SES between 1975 and 2015. We used catch by "gears," catch by "commercial groups" and trade ("import" and "export") as respective indicators of novelty at national, regional and international governance levels. We found that socio-economic novelty increased over time nonlinearly in relation to the 1975–1979 baseline. The contribution to total novelty shifted from the dominance of “gears” and “commercial groups” in the late 1990s and early 2000s to “import” and “export” after the mid-2000s, i.e. from national and regional levels to the international level. The fastest increase in novelty occurred with the trade dominance shift, primarily related to monetary value rather than quantity. Spatially, novelty emerged with a large difference across countries, and a major contribution by Sweden, Denmark and Poland. We identified the influence of different management interventions and governance actions on the emergence of novelty in the Baltic SES. The decreasing socio-economic novelty at national and regional levels could indicate reduced variability due to management intervention in recent years which might decrease SES resilience to shocks. Calculating socio-economic novelty and studying its drivers at different scales could provide a better understanding of SES complexity and inform urgently needed adaptation and transformation towards sustainable future pathways.
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| 3. |
- Ammar, Yosr, et al.
(författare)
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The rise of novelty in marine ecosystems : The Baltic Sea case
- 2021
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 27:7, s. 1485-1499
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global environmental changes have accelerated at an unprecedented rate in recent decades due to human activities. As a consequence, the incidence of novel abiotic conditions and biotic communities, which have been continuously emerging in the Earth system, has rapidly risen. Despite growing attention to the incidence and challenges posed by novelty in terrestrial ecosystems, novelty has not yet been quantified in marine ecosystems. Here, we measured for the rate of novelty (RoN) in abiotic conditions and community structure for three trophic levels, i.e., phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish, in a large marine system - the Baltic Sea. We measured RoN as the degree of dissimilarity relative to a specific spatial and temporal baseline, and contrasted this with the rate of change as a measure of within-basin change over time. We found that over the past 35 years abiotic and biotic RoN showed complex dynamics varying in time and space, depending on the baseline conditions. RoN in abiotic conditions was smaller in the open Central Baltic Sea than in the Kattegat and the more enclosed Gulf of Bothnia, Gulf of Riga, and Gulf of Finland in the north. We found a similar spatial pattern for biotic assemblages, which resulted from changes in composition and stock size. We identified sea-surface temperature and salinity as key drivers of RoN in biotic communities. Hence, future environmental changes that are expected to affect the biogeochemistry of the Baltic Sea, may favor the rise of biotic novelty. Our results highlighted the need for a deeper understanding of novelty development in marine ecosystems, including interactions between species and trophic levels, ecosystem functioning under novel abiotic conditions, and considering novelty in future management interventions.
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| 4. |
- Blenckner, Thorsten, et al.
(författare)
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The Baltic Health Index (BHI): Assessing the social-ecological status of the Baltic Sea
- 2021
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Ingår i: People and Nature. - : Wiley. - 2575-8314. ; 3:2, s. 359-375
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Improving the health of coastal and open sea marine ecosystems represents a substantial challenge for sustainable marine resource management, since it requires balancing human benefits and impacts on the ocean. This challenge is often exacerbated by incomplete knowledge and lack of tools that measure ocean and coastal ecosystem health in a way that allows consistent monitoring of progress towards predefined management targets. The lack of such tools often limits capabilities to enact and enforce effective governance. We introduce the Baltic Health Index (BHI) as a transparent, collaborative and repeatable assessment tool. The Index complements existing, more ecological-oriented, approaches by including a human dimension on the status of the Baltic Sea, an ecosystem impacted by multiple anthropogenic pressures and governed by a multitude of comprehensive national and international policies. Using a large amount of social-ecological data available, we assessed the health of the Baltic Sea for nine goals that represent the status towards set targets, for example, clean waters, biodiversity, food provision, natural products extraction and tourism. Our results indicate that the overall health of the Baltic Sea is suboptimal (a score of 76 out of 100), and a substantial effort is required to reach the management objectives and associated targets. Subregionally, the lowest BHI scores were measured for carbon storage, contaminants and lasting special places (i.e. marine protected areas), albeit with large spatial variation. Overall, the likely future status of all goals in the BHI averaged for the entire Baltic Sea is better than the present status, indicating a positive trend towards a healthier Baltic Sea. However, in some Baltic Sea basins, the trend for specific goals was decreasing, highlighting locations and issues that should be the focus of management priorities. The BHI outcomes can be used to identify both pan-Baltic and subregional scale management priorities and to illustrate the interconnectedness between goals linked by cumulative pressures. Hence, the information provided by the BHI tool and its further development will contribute towards the fulfilment of the UN Agenda 2030 and its Sustainability Development Goals. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
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| 5. |
- Blenckner, Thorsten, et al.
(författare)
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The Risk for Novel and Disappearing Environmental Conditions in the Baltic Sea
- 2021
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Marine Science. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2296-7745. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Future climate biogeochemical projections indicate large changes in the ocean with environmental conditions not experienced at present referred to as novel, or may even disappear. These climate-induced changes will most likely affect species distribution via changes in growth, behavior, evolution, dispersal, and species interactions. However, the future risk of novel and disappearing environmental conditions in the ocean is poorly understood, in particular for compound effects of climate and nutrient management changes. We map the compound risk of the occurrence of future novel and disappearing environmental conditions, analyze the outcome of climate and nutrient management scenarios for the world’s largest estuary, the Baltic Sea, and the potential consequences for three charismatic species. Overall, the future projections show, as expected, an increase in environmental novelty over time. The future nutrient reduction management that improves the eutrophication status of the Baltic Sea contributes to large novel and disappearing conditions. We show the consequences of novel and disappearing environmental conditions for fundamental niches of three charismatic species under different scenarios. This first step toward comprehensively analyzing environmental novelty and disappearing conditions for a marine system illustrates the urgent need to include novelty and disappearing projection outputs in Earth System Models. Our results further illustrate that adaptive management is needed to account for the emergence of novelty related to the interplay of multiple drivers. Overall, our analysis provides strong support for the expectation of novel ecological communities in marine systems, which may affect ecosystem services, and needs to be accounted for in sustainable future management plans of our oceans.
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| 6. |
- Kininmonth, Stuart, et al.
(författare)
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Is Diversity the Missing Link in Coastal Fisheries Management?
- 2022
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Ingår i: Diversity. - : MDPI AG. - 1424-2818. ; 14:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Fisheries management has historically focused on the population elasticity of target fish based primarily on demographic modeling, with the key assumptions of stability in environmental conditions and static trophic relationships. The predictive capacity of this fisheries framework is poor, especially in closed systems where the benthic diversity and boundary effects are important and the stock levels are low. Here, we present a probabilistic model that couples key fish populations with a complex suite of trophic, environmental, and geomorphological factors. Using 41 years of observations we model the changes in eastern Baltic cod (Gadus morhua), herring (Clupea harengus), and Baltic sprat (Sprattus sprattus balticus) for the Baltic Sea within a Bayesian network. The model predictions are spatially explicit and show the changes of the central Baltic Sea from cod- to sprat-dominated ecology over the 41 years. This also highlights how the years 2004 to 2014 deviate in terms of the typical cod–environment relationship, with environmental factors such as salinity being less influential on cod population abundance than in previous periods. The role of macrozoobenthos abundance, biotopic rugosity, and flatfish biomass showed an increased influence in predicting cod biomass in the last decade of the study. Fisheries management that is able to accommodate shifting ecological and environmental conditions relevant to biotopic information will be more effective and realistic. Non-stationary modelling for all of the homogeneous biotope regions, while acknowledging that each has a specific ecology relevant to understanding the fish population dynamics, is essential for fisheries science and sustainable management of fish stocks.
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| 7. |
- Neuenfeldt, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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Feeding and growth of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.) in the eastern Baltic Sea under environmental change
- 2020
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Ingår i: ICES Journal of Marine Science. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1054-3139 .- 1095-9289. ; 77:2, s. 624-632
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Five decades of stomach content data allowed insight into the development of consumption, diet composition, and resulting somatic growth of Gadus morhua (Atlantic cod) in the eastern Baltic Sea. We show a recent reversal in feeding level over body length. Present feeding levels of small cod indicate severe growth limitation and increased starvation-related mortality. For young cod, the low growth rate and the high mortality rate are manifested through a reduction in size-at-age. The low feeding levels are likely the result of a decrease in benthic prey abundance due to increased hypoxic areas, while decreasing abundances of pelagic species in the area of cod distribution have prevented a compensatory shift in diet. Our study emphasizes that environmental forcing and the decline in pelagic prey caused changes in consumption and growth rates of small cod. The food reduction is amplified by stunted growth leading to high densities of cod of smaller size competing for the scarce resources. The average growth rate is negative, and only individuals with feeding levels well above average will survive, though growing slowly. These results suggest that the relation between consumption rate, somatic growth and predatorprey population densities is strongly environmentally mediated.
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| 8. |
- Otto, Saskia A., et al.
(författare)
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Life Cycle Dynamics of a Key Marine Species Under Multiple Stressors
- 2020
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Marine Science. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2296-7745. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Identifying key indicator species, their life cycle dynamics and the multiple driving forces they are affected by is an important step in ecosystem-based management. Similarly important is understanding how environmental changes and trophic interactions shape future trajectories of key species with potential implications for ecosystem state and service provision. We here present a statistical modeling framework to assess and quantify cumulative effects on the long-term dynamics of the copepod Pseudocalanus acuspes, a key species in the Baltic Sea. Our model integrates linear and non-linear responses to changes in life stage density, climate and predation pressure as well as stochastic processes. We use the integrated life cycle model to simulate copepod dynamics under a combination of stressor scenarios and to identify conditions under which population responses are potentially mitigated or magnified. Our novel modeling approach reliably captures the historical P. acuspes population dynamics and allows us to identify females in spring and younger copepodites in summer as stages most sensitive to direct and indirect effects of the main environmental stressors, salinity and temperature. Our model simulations furthermore demonstrate that population responses to stressors are dampened through density effects. Multiple stressor interactions were mostly additive except when acting on the same life stage. Here, negative synergistic and positive dampening effects lead to a lower total population size than expected under additive interactions. As a consequence, we found that a favorable increase of oxygen and phosphate conditions together with a reduction in predation pressure by 50% each could counteract the negative effect of a 25% decrease in salinity by only 6%. Ultimately, our simulations suggest that P. acuspes will most certainly decline under a potential freshening of the Baltic Sea and increasing temperatures, which is conditional on the extent of the assumed climate change. Also the planned nutrient reduction strategy and fishery management plan will not necessarily benefit the temporal development of P. acuspes. Moving forward, there is a growing opportunity for using population modeling in cumulative effects assessments. Our modeling framework can help here as simple tool for species with a discrete life cycle to explore stressor interactions and the safe operating space under future climate change.
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| 9. |
- Pedreschi, Debbi, et al.
(författare)
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Operationalising ODEMM risk assessment for Integrated Ecosystem Assessment scoping : Complexity vs. manageability
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Marine Science. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2296-7745. ; 9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (IEA) require consideration of the full suite of pressures and impacts affecting ecosystems. However, capacity limitations often severely limit our ability to do everything that we want or 'should' do, outside of short-term fully-funded focused research projects. In order to make IEA a reality in many contexts, priority consideration has to be given to how to achieve such comprehensive assessments. Ecoregions and Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) have been identified as potential management units, however these large areas encompass diverse habitats, and multiple nations with diverse human communities and use of marine environments, and a multitude of different management strategies. In this context, how can we make IEA an operational tool that can be applied at such high-level in a comparable, yet regionally-relevant adaptable approach? This paper outlines the demonstration and adaptation of an established risk assessment approach (Options for Delivering Ecosystem-Based Marine Management: ODEMM) to a rapid risk scoping tool, and how this approach has been applied using open source common analytical tools to improve operationality in both the Mission Atlantic project and the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Integrated Ecosystem Assessment Working Groups. Furthermore, a hierarchical approach is detailed that allows the integration of different levels of detail into a common format. The resulting assessments are then ground-truthed with stakeholders to identify issues, omissions, potential conflicts, and key areas of interest for the next steps of the IEA process.
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| 10. |
- Snoeijs-Leijonmalm, Pauline, 1956-, et al.
(författare)
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Review of the research knowledge and gaps on fish populations, fisheries and linked ecosystems in the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO)
- 2020
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report presents a review of the research knowledge and gaps on fish populations, fisheries and linked ecosystems in the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO). The CAO comprises the deep basins of the Arctic Ocean beyond the shelf break, which largely overlap with the High Seas of the Arctic Ocean, i.e. the marine areas outside the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the Arctic coastal nations. The authors of the report are members of the European Fisheries Inventory in the Central Arctic Ocean (EFICA) Consortium. This study was funded by the European Commission as an EU contribution to the international cooperation within the Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean.
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