Show/Hide Menu
Hide/Show Apps
anonymousUser
Logout
Türkçe
Türkçe
Search
Search
Login
Login
OpenMETU
OpenMETU
About
About
Open Science Policy
Open Science Policy
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Communities & Collections
Communities & Collections
An indicator-based evaluation of Black Sea food web dynamics during 1960-2000
Date
2014-06-01
Author
Akoğlu, Ekin
Salihoğlu, Barış
LİBRALATO, Simone
OGUZ, Temel
SOLİDORO, Cosimo
Metadata
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
.
Item Usage Stats
5
views
0
downloads
Four Ecopath mass-balance models were implemented for evaluating the structure and function of the Black Sea ecosystem using several ecological indicators during four distinctive periods (1960s, 1980-1987,1988-1994 and 1995-2000). The results exemplify how the Black Sea ecosystem structure started to change after the 1960s as a result of a series of trophic transformations, i.e., shifts in the energy flow pathways through the food web. These transformations were initiated by anthropogenic factors, such as eutrophication and overfishing, that led to the transfer of large quantities of energy to the trophic dead-end species, which had no natural predators in the ecosystem, i.e., jellyfish whose biomass increased from 0.03 g C m(-2) in 1960-1969 to 0.933 g C m(-2) in 1988-1994. Concurrently, an alternative short pathway for energy transfer was formed that converted significant amounts of system production back to detritus. This decreased the transfer efficiency of energy flow from the primary producers to the higher trophic levels from 9% in the 1960s to 3% between 1980 and 1987. We conclude that the anchovy stock collapse and successful establishment of the alien comb-jelly Mnemiopsis in 1989 were rooted in the trophic interactions in the food web, all of which were exacerbated because of the long-term establishment of a combination of anthropogenic stressors.
Subject Keywords
Black Sea
,
Ecopath with Ecosim
,
Ecological balance
,
Ecosystem disturbance
,
Trophic structure
,
Overfishing
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/30522
Journal
JOURNAL OF MARINE SYSTEMS
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmarsys.2014.02.010
Collections
Graduate School of Marine Sciences, Article