Klimatförändringar och födovävseffektivitet i akvatiska miljöer

In association with climate warming, many freshwater and coastal ecosystems have become greener and browner due to increased concentrations of nutrients, iron and dissolved organic matter from run-off entering water bodies. Water temperatures, nutrient and light conditions are thus undergoing rapid change.

At the same time, climate warming is altering body size distributions in aquatic food webs.

This project aims to resolve how simultaneous greening, browning and warming of water bodies change the efficiency of energy transfer from primary producers to fish (i.e. food web efficiency, FWE), and how this is affected by size variation among individuals.

To this end, we will use a combination of survey data, manipulative experiments and dynamic stage-structured bio-energetic food web models to examine: (1) How warming-induced shifts in FWE vary with light and nutrients, (2) How food web configuration and (3) Inter- and intraspecific size variation modify FWE in different climate change scenarios.

The findings will be combined to simulate how ecosystem services corresponding to FWE, such as production of fishable biomass, vary with climate warming, browning and eutrophication scenarios.

The proposed research program will help identify strategies required to maintain ecosystem services in face of multiple stressors, with implications for the ability of aquatic ecosystems to act as carbon sinks and uphold high production of fish biomass in the future.