Ocean food-web patrol – climate effects: reducing targeted uncertainties with an interactive network (OCEAN-CERTAIN)

The marine food web is at the centre of both the climate-related cycle of carbon dioxide and food production in the marine environment. It plays a key role in regulating the climate system; but at the same time is highly sensitive to climate change and other stressors. The OCEAN-CERTAIN project investigates the impacts of climatic and non-climatic stressors on the marine food web and the connected biological pump, including as well the analysis of important feedback mechanisms. The biological pump is the oceanic process that has the largest influence on carbon dioxide and other elemental cycles in the ocean; this is connected to the food web. The food web provides a number of ecological functions (water filtration, energy and mass transfer from one trophic level to another, nutrient and carbon recycling, export of carbon from the euphotic surface layer to the deep sea and sediment) that are also known as the biological pump. The analysis is based on: ecosystem models, existing data, mesocosm lab-scale experiments and field study.

The resulting knowledge is used to assess socio-economic vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity by using indicators of food-web functions as responses to particular changes by way of stressor combinations. OCEAN-CERTAIN addresses socio-economic, policy and management issues by using highly interactive participatory stakeholder workshops to create models of user group resilience and adaptability. These show how potential climate-driven physical, chemical and biological changes may affect relevant economic activities and human welfare, and help to identify adaptation pathways. This information and knowledge reduces uncertainty and help policy makers chose among management options, which in turn are treated as additional feedbacks to the food web. The stressors, key feedback mechanisms and indicators, form the basis for the design of an integrated Decision Support System (DSS) useful for decision makers to evaluate sustainable exploitation of marine resources and mitigation and adaptation pathways.