Publication Abstract

Structural change in marine ecosystems: regime shifts or not?

C.P Lynam* and S. Mackinson*

Regime shifts in marine systems have been well researched in recent years and numerous studies have shown evidence for abrupt change in ecosystem structure. However, a thorough examination of any ‘regime shift’ will reveal many complexities. As a result the identification of regime shifts is not a simple task and predictive tools are still in their infancy. From the suite of methods available to detect regime shifts, I have favoured statistical regression based methods. As a case study, I explore the Irish Sea ecosystem and investigate temporal change in the abundance of phytoplankton, crustacean zooplankton, jellyfish and finfish. I aim to extend these analyses using multivariate methods to detect regime shifts in the Celtic Sea and wider North Sea Ecoregions.