Climate change and management
How do climate change-driven alterations in physical and chemical ocean conditions cascade through marine ecosystems, affecting biodiversity, ecosystem function, and the provision of ecosystem services, and what are the implications for management strategies?
This overarching question opens for a comprehensive exploration of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems using EwE, providing insights for ecosystem-based management in a changing world.
Potential policy questions
- Temperature-driven changes: How do rising sea temperatures affect species distributions, growth rates, and trophic interactions?
- Primary productivity shifts: How do climate-induced changes in primary productivity propagate through the food web?
- Species range shifts: How do poleward migrations of species affect ecosystem structure and function in both origin and destination ecosystems?
- Invasive species dynamics: How might climate change facilitate the establishment and spread of invasive species, and what are the ecosystem consequences?
- Ocean acidification impacts: How does decreasing pH affect calcifying organisms and their predators/prey, and what are the ecosystem-wide consequences?
- Extreme weather events: How do increased frequency and intensity of storms, heatwaves, or other extreme events impact ecosystem resilience?
- Sea level rise: What are the implications of habitat loss or alteration due to sea level rise, particularly for coastal and estuarine ecosystems?
- Oxygen: How does lowering of oxygen in the oceans and the expansion of oxygen minimum zones affect species distributions and trophic interactions?
- Trophic mismatches: How do climate-induced changes in phenology lead to trophic mismatches, and what are the ecosystem-level consequences?
- Key species vulnerabilities: How do climate impacts on key ecosystem species or ecosystem engineers cascade through the ecosystem?
- Regime shifts: Can EwE help identify potential tipping points or regime shifts under different climate scenarios?
- Adaptation strategies: How effective are different management strategies in mitigating climate impacts on ecosystems and fisheries?
- Synergistic effects: How do climate stressors interact with other anthropogenic pressures like fishing or pollution?
- Ecosystem services: How do climate-induced changes in ecosystem structure and function translate to changes in ecosystem service provision?
- Time scales of change: What are the short-term versus long-term ecosystem responses to climate change, and how do they differ?
- Spatial heterogeneity: How do climate impacts vary across different regions or habitat types within the modeled ecosystem?
- Uncertainty quantification: How can uncertainty in climate projections be incorporated into EwE models and communicated in results?
- Feedback mechanisms: How can EwE capture potential feedback loops between ecosystem changes and local climate conditions?
- Resilience indicators: Which ecosystem attributes or indicators best reflect resilience to climate change impacts?
- Economic implications: How do climate-induced ecosystem changes translate to economic impacts on fisheries and other marine industries?
- Marine protected areas: How effective are existing or proposed marine protected areas under different climate scenarios?
- Multi-model comparisons (FishMIP): How do EwE projections compare with other ecosystem modeling approaches for climate change impacts?
- Data needs: What critical data gaps need to be filled to improve the reliability of climate impact projections using EwE?
- Policy relevance: How can EwE outputs be effectively translated into policy recommendations for climate-adaptive ecosystem management?
