Compensation and recovery of feeding guilds in a northwest Atlantic shelf fish community

Disturbance of marine ecosystems from fishing has resulted in significant shifts in the composition of fish communities. Such changes can result in shifts in dominance of functional (trophic) guilds within communities and the role that guilds play in ecosystem functioning. In partic- ular, studies in coral reef and kelp forest fish communities have demonstrated a low level of func- tional redundancy, yet few studies have examined fish communities from temperate large marine ecosystems. We compared the abundance and composition of feeding guilds (i.e. planktivores, ben- thivores, amphipod-shrimp feeders, crabivores, echinoderm feeders, shrimp-fish feeders, and pisci- vores) on the continental shelf of the northeast US across 4 decades (i.e. 1970s to the present), exam- ining changes in guild structure to determine if: (1) there have been significant changes in the abundance of functional guilds within the fish community, (2) there have been significant changes within guilds, and (3) there are commonalities in responses with studies from other habitats. We found that 5 of the 7 guilds exhibited remarkable stability in abundance over time despite extreme levels of exploitation and shifts in the abundance of individual species. We suggest there are compen- satory mechanisms within those guilds that resulted in, or are an outcome of, their functional role within the shelf fish community. Comparing our results with studies in more spatially discrete habi- tats such as coral reefs or kelp forests suggests that erosion of functionally redundancies may be related to the resolution involved, be it spatial extent of observations, movement patterns of fishes, taxonomic precision of functional role, or variations in the diversity of species interactions within these ecosystems. Regardless, to prevent any potential for erosion of functional roles, we recommend that guild structure be considered as a unit for monitoring and resource management.

[1]  J. E. Randall.  Food habits of reef fishes of the West Indies , 1967 .

[2]  W. Overholtz,et al.  LONG~ERM RESPONSES OF THE DEMERSAL FISH ASSEMBLAGES OF GEORGES BANK , 1985 .

[3]  Carl J. Walters,et al.  Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources , 1986 .

[4]  S. Ross.  Resource partitioning in fish assem-blages: a review of field studies , 1986 .

[5]  J. Estes,et al.  The Ecology of Extinctions in Kelp Forest Communities , 1989 .

[6]  W. L. Gabriel.  Persistence of Demersal Fish Assemblages Between Cape Hatteras and Nova Scotia, Northwest Atlantic , 1992 .

[7]  T. Hughes.  Catastrophes, Phase Shifts, and Large-Scale Degradation of a Caribbean Coral Reef , 1994, Science.

[8]  D. Schneider,et al.  A spatial and temporal perspective on research and management of groundfish in the northwest Atlantic , 1995 .

[9]  P. Auster,et al.  The impacts of mobile fishing gear on seafloor habitats in the gulf of Maine (Northwest Atlantic): Implications for conservation of fish populations , 1996 .

[10]  Shahid Naeem,et al.  Species Redundancy and Ecosystem Reliability , 1998 .

[11]  Michael J. Fogarty,et al.  LARGE-SCALE DISTURBANCE AND THE STRUCTURE OF MARINE SYSTEMS: FISHERY IMPACTS ON GEORGES BANK , 1998 .

[12]  P. Auster,et al.  The Effects of Fishing on Fish Habitat , 1999 .

[13]  J. Link,et al.  An Overview and History of the Food Web Dynamics Program of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts , 2000 .

[14]  Jason S. Link,et al.  Dietary guild structure of the fish community in the Northeast United States continental shelf ecosystem , 2000 .

[15]  J. Link,et al.  Fishing effects on spatial distribution and trophic guild structure of the fish community in the Georges Bank region , 2000 .

[16]  K. Bjorndal,et al.  Historical Overfishing and the Recent Collapse of Coastal Ecosystems , 2001, Science.

[17]  L. Kaufman,et al.  Modeling the Effects of Fishing and Implications for the Design of Marine Protected Areas: Juvenile Fish Responses to Variations in Seafloor Habitat , 2001 .

[18]  Jason S. Link,et al.  Ecological Considerations in Fisheries Management: When Does it Matter? , 2002 .

[19]  Jason S. Link,et al.  Does food web theory work for marine ecosystems , 2002 .

[20]  Jason S. Link,et al.  Marine ecosystem assessment in a fisheries management context , 2002 .

[21]  K. Bjorndal,et al.  Global Trajectories of the Long-Term Decline of Coral Reef Ecosystems , 2003, Science.

[22]  S. Garcia.  The ecosystem approach to fisheries : issues, terminology, principles, institutional foundations, implementation and outlook , 2003 .

[23]  B. Worm,et al.  Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities , 2003, Nature.

[24]  P. Auster,et al.  Role of a large marine protected area for conserving landscape attributes of sand habitats on Georges Bank (NW Atlantic) , 2004 .

[25]  P. Auster,et al.  Variation in Habitat use by Juvenile Acadian Redfish, Sebastes fasciatus , 2003, Environmental Biology of Fishes.

[26]  Barbara Rountree,et al.  Portfolio management of wild fish stocks , 2004 .

[27]  R. Steneck,et al.  Accelerating Trophic-level Dysfunction in Kelp Forest Ecosystems of the Western North Atlantic , 2004, Ecosystems.

[28]  P. Auster,et al.  Pattern in the Co-occurrence of Fishes Inhabiting the Coral Reefs of Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles , 2005, Environmental Biology of Fishes.

[29]  The Ecology of Fishes on Deep Boulder Reefs in the Western Gulf of Maine (NW Atlantic). , 2005 .

[30]  Jae S. Choi,et al.  Trophic Cascades in a Formerly Cod-Dominated Ecosystem , 2005, Science.

[31]  J. Link,et al.  Food-web theory in marine ecosystems , 2005 .

[32]  Michael J. Fogarty,et al.  Effort distribution and catch patterns adjacent to temperate MPAs , 2005 .

[33]  B. Halpern,et al.  Low functional redundancy in coastal marine assemblages , 2005 .

[34]  Marc Mangel,et al.  Regime, phase and paradigm shifts: making community ecology the basic science for fisheries , 2005, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[35]  J. Brodziak,et al.  Interdecadal variability in the Gulf of Maine zooplankton community, with potential impacts on fish recruitment , 2005 .

[36]  K. Drinkwater,et al.  The response of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) to future climate change , 2005 .

[37]  T. Essington,et al.  Fishing through marine food webs. , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[38]  Daniel R. Brumbaugh,et al.  Fishing, Trophic Cascades, and the Process of Grazing on Coral Reefs , 2006, Science.

[39]  J. Link,et al.  Seasonal variation in groundfish habitat associations in the Gulf of Maine-Georges Bank region , 2006 .

[40]  Bernard A. Megrey,et al.  Using multi-species surplus production models to estimate ecosystem-level maximum sustainable yields , 2006 .

[41]  Simon J. Pittman,et al.  An ecological characterization of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary region : oceanographic, biogeographic, and contaminants assessment , 2006 .

[42]  E. Sala,et al.  Structure of Caribbean coral reef communities across a large gradient of fish biomass. , 2006, Ecology letters.

[43]  S. Rogers,et al.  Indicators of the health of the North Sea fish community: identifying reference levels for an ecosystem approach to management , 2006 .

[44]  John H. Steele,et al.  Balancing end-to-end budgets of the Georges Bank ecosystem , 2007 .

[45]  J. Kane.  Zooplankton abundance trends on Georges Bank, 1977–2004 , 2007 .

[46]  J. Link.  Underappreciated species in ecology: "ugly fish" in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. , 2007, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[47]  J. Hare,et al.  Mechanistic links between climate and fisheries along the east coast of the United States: explaining population outbursts of Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus) , 2007 .

[48]  C. Greene,et al.  Climate Drives Sea Change , 2007, Science.

[49]  Peter J. Auster,et al.  Site fidelity and movement of adult Atlantic cod Gadus morhua at deep boulder reefs in the western Gulf of Maine, USA , 2007 .

[50]  Stephen P. Hubbell,et al.  Ecological Extinction and Evolution in the Brave New Ocean , 2008 .

[51]  H. P. Jeffries,et al.  Long-term shifts in the species composition of a coastal fish community , 2008 .