Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ECOTIP (Arctic biodiversity change and its consequences: Assessing, monitoring and predicting the effects of ecosystem tipping cascades on marine ecosystem services and dependent human systems)
Reporting period: 2021-12-01 to 2023-05-31
ECOTIP investigates the interaction between biodiversity change and the ecosystem functions and services in the arctic marine ecosystem, including fisheries and carbon sequestration. The Arctic Ocean and the adjacent subpolar seas are changing quickly. Water temperatures are increasing at a rate that is twice that of the global average, permanent sea ice is disappearing, species from more temperate seas are appearing while resident species are in decline, and the timing of annually reoccurring events is changing. Biodiversity and the ecosystem functions that it supports are therefore being irrevocably altered, with unknown repercussions for the ecosystem services upon which both local and global societies rely. The Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas harbor some of these key ecosystem services – carbon sequestration and food-web productivity – where regional changes in ecosystem functions can result in positive feedbacks to global climate and influence the food production, economy and cultural heritage of the human societies in the Arctic and beyond.
The Arctic marine region is also subject to a series of climatic tipping elements that could precipitate a regional regime shift of unprecedented magnitude. Our current knowledge of drivers, measures and responses of biodiversity change and its consequences for ecosystem functions is insufficient to estimate critical thresholds for such a regional regime shift, or in fact to assess whether the loss of biodiversity will induce a sudden or continuous degradation of ecosystem functions. It is however likely that if cascading biodiversity change results in a loss of key ecosystem functions, a threshold – an ecosystem tipping point – can be reached, with potentially critical consequences for the ecosystems and the services that they provide.
ECOTIP investigates the causes and consequences of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors for marine biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services in the arctic with five main objectives:
1) To map the current biodiversity of Arctic marine ecosystems and its past and present interaction with external drivers (multiple stressors), using traits as a measure of functional diversity
2) To investigate the vulnerability of marine communities (with different trait compositions), functions and ecosystem services to multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors, and to determine their potential for ecosystem tipping points
3) To use the analysis of functional (trait) diversity to predict a) changes in the local production and type of fisheries and b) in carbon sequestration by biological pump under multiple anthropogenic stressors
4) To engage in dialogue and co-creation of alternative governance structures and adaptation strategies for the local and indigenous communities, as well as industries and regulatory authorities
5) To ensure effective exploitation of the project results in international scientific assessments of Arctic biodiversity change and by policy-makers, to ensure dialogue, communication and dissemination to indigenous societies and European citizens, and to provide recommendations for optimizing the monitoring of Arctic biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The Arctic marine region is also subject to a series of climatic tipping elements that could precipitate a regional regime shift of unprecedented magnitude. Our current knowledge of drivers, measures and responses of biodiversity change and its consequences for ecosystem functions is insufficient to estimate critical thresholds for such a regional regime shift, or in fact to assess whether the loss of biodiversity will induce a sudden or continuous degradation of ecosystem functions. It is however likely that if cascading biodiversity change results in a loss of key ecosystem functions, a threshold – an ecosystem tipping point – can be reached, with potentially critical consequences for the ecosystems and the services that they provide.
ECOTIP investigates the causes and consequences of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors for marine biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services in the arctic with five main objectives:
1) To map the current biodiversity of Arctic marine ecosystems and its past and present interaction with external drivers (multiple stressors), using traits as a measure of functional diversity
2) To investigate the vulnerability of marine communities (with different trait compositions), functions and ecosystem services to multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors, and to determine their potential for ecosystem tipping points
3) To use the analysis of functional (trait) diversity to predict a) changes in the local production and type of fisheries and b) in carbon sequestration by biological pump under multiple anthropogenic stressors
4) To engage in dialogue and co-creation of alternative governance structures and adaptation strategies for the local and indigenous communities, as well as industries and regulatory authorities
5) To ensure effective exploitation of the project results in international scientific assessments of Arctic biodiversity change and by policy-makers, to ensure dialogue, communication and dissemination to indigenous societies and European citizens, and to provide recommendations for optimizing the monitoring of Arctic biodiversity and ecosystem services.
To date ECOTIP has initiated and conducted the following activities:
• Collection of new field data. This has been done through diverse field campaigns, most notably during the dedicated process cruises to West Greenland (July-August 2021) and East Greenland (August-September 2022). The cruise to West Greenland took place onboard R/V Dana (Technical University of Denmark) and included ca. 25 stations along onshore-offshore and south-north gradients between Nuuk and Disko Bay and included sampling on hydrography, water chemistry, phytoplankton and microbial processes, zooplankton and fish larvae, benthic communities, sedimentation and paleo-oceanographic data, to understand the interaction between multiple stressors and biodiversity, and to connect the biodiversity to ecosystem functions such as benthic-pelagic coupling. The cruise to East Greenland took place onboard Maria S. Merian (Germany), including nine 24-h process stations in three fjords as well as a number of shorter CTD and plankton stations. The variables that were sampled were similar to the cruise on West Greenland, but focused more on the processes within the fjords.
• Data analysis. ECOTIP partners have collected and synthetized existing data sources for both biological and socio-economic data for subsequent analysis focusing on e.g. trait diversity and the role of local ecological knowledge, respectively. Analysis of historical catch data demonstrated a pronounced shift in the distribution of fish and marine mammals along the East Greenland, including a change in the spawning areas of capelin.
• Modelling activities. ECOTIP focuses on the trait-based approach and strives to describe the biodiversity in terms of traits and to use trait-based models to investigate the consequences of biodiversity change to ecosystem functions and services. In addition, ECOTIP uses Bayesian networks to test the inter-dependency of ecosystem components / processes and the cause-consequence links between environmental forcing and ecosystem functions. The modelling advances directing towards the biological pump have so far included, e.g. an unicellular trait-based model including an algorithm to compute biodiversity and a coupled unicellular-zooplankton model.
• Socio-economic activities. Although the socio-economic data gathering suffered from the Covid pandemic, ECOTIP socio-economists managed to conduct a stakeholder workshop and first interviews of fishers in Nuuk in November 2021. The interviews for West Greenland were completed in 2022 and early part of 2023, and interviews in east Greenland are ongoing.
• Data management, dissemination and communication have received much attention in ECOTIP with activities ranging from participation in the activities of Polar Cluster and diverse ICES working groups to education activities for high school teachers, university students and early-career scientists. Some of the highlights include a photo exhibit launched during a mid-term policy event in Brussels and a Webinar on the recent IPCC report.
• Collection of new field data. This has been done through diverse field campaigns, most notably during the dedicated process cruises to West Greenland (July-August 2021) and East Greenland (August-September 2022). The cruise to West Greenland took place onboard R/V Dana (Technical University of Denmark) and included ca. 25 stations along onshore-offshore and south-north gradients between Nuuk and Disko Bay and included sampling on hydrography, water chemistry, phytoplankton and microbial processes, zooplankton and fish larvae, benthic communities, sedimentation and paleo-oceanographic data, to understand the interaction between multiple stressors and biodiversity, and to connect the biodiversity to ecosystem functions such as benthic-pelagic coupling. The cruise to East Greenland took place onboard Maria S. Merian (Germany), including nine 24-h process stations in three fjords as well as a number of shorter CTD and plankton stations. The variables that were sampled were similar to the cruise on West Greenland, but focused more on the processes within the fjords.
• Data analysis. ECOTIP partners have collected and synthetized existing data sources for both biological and socio-economic data for subsequent analysis focusing on e.g. trait diversity and the role of local ecological knowledge, respectively. Analysis of historical catch data demonstrated a pronounced shift in the distribution of fish and marine mammals along the East Greenland, including a change in the spawning areas of capelin.
• Modelling activities. ECOTIP focuses on the trait-based approach and strives to describe the biodiversity in terms of traits and to use trait-based models to investigate the consequences of biodiversity change to ecosystem functions and services. In addition, ECOTIP uses Bayesian networks to test the inter-dependency of ecosystem components / processes and the cause-consequence links between environmental forcing and ecosystem functions. The modelling advances directing towards the biological pump have so far included, e.g. an unicellular trait-based model including an algorithm to compute biodiversity and a coupled unicellular-zooplankton model.
• Socio-economic activities. Although the socio-economic data gathering suffered from the Covid pandemic, ECOTIP socio-economists managed to conduct a stakeholder workshop and first interviews of fishers in Nuuk in November 2021. The interviews for West Greenland were completed in 2022 and early part of 2023, and interviews in east Greenland are ongoing.
• Data management, dissemination and communication have received much attention in ECOTIP with activities ranging from participation in the activities of Polar Cluster and diverse ICES working groups to education activities for high school teachers, university students and early-career scientists. Some of the highlights include a photo exhibit launched during a mid-term policy event in Brussels and a Webinar on the recent IPCC report.
ECOTIP results will provide new insights into the causes and consequences of biodiversity loss in the Arctic marine ecosystems, including its effect on the ecosystem services such as fisheries and carbon sequestration. Moreover, ECOTIP will advance the trait-based modelling approaches that enable the direct linking of the loss in functional diversity and ecosystem services, and provide improved predictions for the future of fisheries production and for the effectivity of the biological carbon pump. These will form the basis for the adaptation strategies of local communities, co-creation of which ECOTIP will contribute to. The impact of ECOTIP includes supporting the newly integrated EU Arctic policy and the Paris Agreement in their agendas to adapt to climate change, to safeguard the Arctic marine environment, to promote sustainable development in the Arctic and to support international collaboration on Arctic. ECOTIP will do this by investigating the knowledge gaps regarding sources, causes and consequences of multiple anthropogenic stressors for Arctic biodiversity, ecosystem function and its services, and by recommending adaptation and resilience-building strategies and regulatory measures.
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