Abstract
Marine ecosystems can experience regime shifts, in which they shift from being organized around one set of mutually reinforcing structures and processes to another. Anthropogenic global change has broadly increased a wide variety of processes that can drive regime shifts. To assess the vulnerability of marine ecosystems to such shifts and their potential consequences, we reviewed the scientific literature for 13 types of marine regime shifts and used networks to conduct an analysis of co-occurrence of drivers and ecosystem service impacts. We found that regime shifts are caused by multiple drivers and have multiple consequences that co-occur in a non-random pattern. Drivers related to food production, climate change and coastal development are the most common co-occurring causes of regime shifts, while cultural services, biodiversity and primary production are the most common cluster of ecosystem services affected. These clusters prioritize sets of drivers for management and highlight the need for coordinated actions across multiple drivers and scales to reduce the risk of marine regime shifts. Managerial strategies are likely to fail if they only address well-understood or data-rich variables, and international cooperation and polycentric institutions will be critical to implement and coordinate action across the scales at which different drivers operate. By better understanding these underlying patterns, we hope to inform the development of managerial strategies to reduce the risk of high-impact marine regime shifts, especially for areas of the world where data are not available or monitoring programmes are not in place.
Highlights
Human action is transforming the biota, chemistry and temperature of the world’s oceans at unprecedented rates
To assess the vulnerability of marine ecosystems to such shifts and their potential consequences, we reviewed the scientific literature for 13 types of marine regime shifts and used networks to conduct an analysis of co-occurrence of drivers and ecosystem service impacts
This paper aims to assess the patterns of co-occurrence of drivers and ecosystem service consequences of marine regime shifts, in order to inform better managerial strategies
Summary
Human action is transforming the biota, chemistry and temperature of the world’s oceans at unprecedented rates. While these changes are often gradual, in some cases they can lead to regime shifts: persistent, substantial reorganizations of the structure and function of marine ecosystems [1,2]. A regime is a persistent organization of mutually reinforcing structures and processes. A regime shift occurs when a combination of stronger destabilizing feedbacks, weaker stabilizing feedback processes and external shocks cause the system to reorganize around a different set of mutually reinforcing structures and processes. Regime shifts often have substantial impacts on ecosystem services and human well-being [6,7], but are typically difficult to predict and costly to reverse [8,9]. The collapse of fisheries or reconfiguration of marine food webs can have major impacts on fish yields, the fishing industry and fishers [10,11]; coral reef degradation can harm local tourism, fishers’ livelihoods and decrease protection from coastal shoreline erosion [12]; while the melting of icecaps is expected to cause major sea-level rise with massive costs for coastal people and settlements [13 –15]
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