Alteration of coastal productivity and artisanal fisheries interact to affect a marine food-web

Abstract

Top-down and bottom-up forces determine ecosystem function and dynamics. Fisheries as a top-down force can shorten and destabilize food-webs, while climate-change driven effects can alter the bottom-up forces of primary productivity. We assessed the response of a highly-resolved intertidal food-web to these two global-change drivers, using network analysis and bioenergetic modelling. We quantified the relative importance of artisanal fisheries as another predator species, and evaluated the independent and combined effects of fisheries and plankton-productivity changes on food-web dynamics. The food-web was robust to the loss of all harvested species but sensible to plankton-productivity decline. Interestingly, fisheries dampened the negative impacts of decreasing plankton productivity on non-harvested species, while plankton-productivity decline increased the sensitivity of harvested species to fishing. Our results show that strategies for new scenarios caused by climate change are needed to protect marine ecosystems and the wellbeing of local communities dependent on their resources.