Marine regime shifts around the globe: Theory, drivers and impacts
Summary
This theme issue ‘Marine regime shifts around the globe: theory, drivers and impacts’ has the goal to make a step change towards a more unified understanding of regime shifts in marine ecosystems. Towards this purpose we define ecological regime shifts as ‘dramatic, abrupt changes in the community structure that are persistent in time, encompassing multiple variables, and including key structural species—independently from the mechanisms causing them’.
Our definition deliberately includes regime-like changes without evidence of multiple alternative stable states (or multiple basins of attraction), as we think emphasis on this theoretical aspect often hinders progress in considering abrupt changes in marine ecosystem-based management. Our definition is hence more practical for marine management purposes and can be used for both benthic and pelagic regime shifts, even where the link with the mathematical theory is not yet fully established.
This special issue brings together experts from different marine science disciplines and trophic level expertise (i.e. benthic ecology, pelagic ecology, fisheries, marine conservation and management), from diverse marine ecosystems, and from a mixture of geographical areas around the globe. More than 80 authors from six continents have contributed to the 16 papers in this issue, around the following themes: (i) advances in marine regime shift theory, (ii) drivers of marine regime shifts and (iii) management of marine regime shifts.
