Pyramids of Life: Working with nature for a sustainable future
Lead Research Organisation:
Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science
Abstract
Our planet's natural resources face unsustainable demands and there is evidence that current management approaches are failing to move resource use towards a sustainable future. This failure is particularly acute in marine ecosystems where about 95% of fisheries are fully- or over-exploited. A step-change is needed to achieve sustainability, but such change can only be affected if it aligns with consumer demand, real world fishing practicalities, and with sustainable national policies such as the Natural Capital Approach described by the UK's 25 Year Environment Plan. The 'Pyramids of Life' approach to a sustainable future captures and helps to communicate complex relationships between different species, human behaviours, and marine ecosystem functions.
Ecological pyramids represent different size-based trophic levels with the relative scarcity of larger organisms being regulated by well-understood scaling principles based on energy flow from smaller prey. Human needs can also be represented in hierarchical pyramids where lower level physiological needs (e.g. need for food) must be satisfied before higher level needs (e.g. need for self-esteem) can influence behaviour (e.g. value systems). If presented together, information from such pyramids would allow stakeholders to understand complex and dynamic systems and their interdependencies, contribute to inform adaptive decision-making and lend itself to efficient and scalable modelling tools based on existing datasets
The problem for the UK's marine resources is that fisheries management agreements typically use metrics which are based, for a given species, on the number of tonnes landed above some given minimum size. This can distort the size structure of naturally productive pyramids, causing local crashes in populations. It can also be wasteful where catches inevitably encompass many species. Consumer preference and market forces also play a role, promoting "plate-sized" catches and well-known species at the possible expense of more ecologically sustainable alternatives.
We have shown that management which better respects ecological pyramids, and where harvest at a particular size class is proportional to the production at that size class (in units of carbon per year), can be both more productive and surprisingly resilient to external challenges. The challenge is to convert this academic observation into practical reality. To do this, we need to understand the behaviour of consumers, and of fishers, and to identify where change can be commercially viable as well as ecologically sustainable. Again the pyramid concept, this time describing values and behaviours, is helpful. Co-development with our partner organisations has identified key target species and fisheries, and existing datasets, where targeted changes in management can align with both the realities of human behaviour and economic value, and ecological sustainability.
The research combines overlapping expertise in socio-economics and human behaviour (University of East Anglia), ecology and detailed spatio-temporal datasets (Cefas),and mathematics and marine ecology (University of York). Our partners Seafish and Waitrose bring detailed expertise in market dynamics, consumer behaviour and fishing effort, as well as matching our commitment to long-term sustainability. Together, this body of work will provide a multidimensional perspective of the value of marine ecosystems so that future management interventions are based squarely on what is sustainable.
Ecological pyramids represent different size-based trophic levels with the relative scarcity of larger organisms being regulated by well-understood scaling principles based on energy flow from smaller prey. Human needs can also be represented in hierarchical pyramids where lower level physiological needs (e.g. need for food) must be satisfied before higher level needs (e.g. need for self-esteem) can influence behaviour (e.g. value systems). If presented together, information from such pyramids would allow stakeholders to understand complex and dynamic systems and their interdependencies, contribute to inform adaptive decision-making and lend itself to efficient and scalable modelling tools based on existing datasets
The problem for the UK's marine resources is that fisheries management agreements typically use metrics which are based, for a given species, on the number of tonnes landed above some given minimum size. This can distort the size structure of naturally productive pyramids, causing local crashes in populations. It can also be wasteful where catches inevitably encompass many species. Consumer preference and market forces also play a role, promoting "plate-sized" catches and well-known species at the possible expense of more ecologically sustainable alternatives.
We have shown that management which better respects ecological pyramids, and where harvest at a particular size class is proportional to the production at that size class (in units of carbon per year), can be both more productive and surprisingly resilient to external challenges. The challenge is to convert this academic observation into practical reality. To do this, we need to understand the behaviour of consumers, and of fishers, and to identify where change can be commercially viable as well as ecologically sustainable. Again the pyramid concept, this time describing values and behaviours, is helpful. Co-development with our partner organisations has identified key target species and fisheries, and existing datasets, where targeted changes in management can align with both the realities of human behaviour and economic value, and ecological sustainability.
The research combines overlapping expertise in socio-economics and human behaviour (University of East Anglia), ecology and detailed spatio-temporal datasets (Cefas),and mathematics and marine ecology (University of York). Our partners Seafish and Waitrose bring detailed expertise in market dynamics, consumer behaviour and fishing effort, as well as matching our commitment to long-term sustainability. Together, this body of work will provide a multidimensional perspective of the value of marine ecosystems so that future management interventions are based squarely on what is sustainable.
Organisations
- Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Lead Research Organisation)
- Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (Collaboration)
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Collaboration)
- Dutch Research Council (Collaboration)
- Spanish Institute of Oceanography (Collaboration)
- French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Collaboration)
- Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (Collaboration)
- National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (Collaboration)
- Technical University of Denmark (Collaboration)
- Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos (Collaboration)
- Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Collaboration)
- University of Plymouth (Collaboration)
- Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) (Collaboration)
- Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (Collaboration)
Publications
Chen Z
(2025)
Increased benthic biodiversity and food web recovery after decommissioning of oil and gas infrastructure
in Limnology and Oceanography
Cooper K
(2026)
Mapping benthic biodiversity to facilitate future sustainable development
in Ecosphere
Faith M
(2025)
Mapping climate risks across global pelagic fishing grounds
Holland MM
(2024)
Predictors of long-term variability in NE Atlantic plankton communities.
in The Science of the total environment
Lindmark M
(2025)
Weak effects of local prey density and spatial overlap on predation intensity in a temperate marine ecosystem.
in Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America
Shurety A
(2026)
Commercial fishing amplifies impacts of increasing temperature on predator-prey interactions in marine ecosystems
in Nature Communications
Thompson M
(2024)
Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans
| Description | Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans: International efforts to assess the status of marine ecosystems have been hampered by insufficient observations of food web interactions across many species, their various life stages, and their geographic ranges. Hence, we collated data from multiple databases of fish stomach contents from samples taken across the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans containing 944 129 stomach samples from larvae to adults, with 14 196 unique interactions between 227 predator species and 2158 prey taxa. We use these data to develop a reproducible data-driven approach to classifying broad functional feeding guilds and then apply these to fish survey data from the north-east Atlantic shelf seas to reveal spatial and temporal changes in ecosystem structure and functioning. In doing so, we construct individual predator-prey body-mass scaling models to predict the biomass of prey functional groups, e.g. zooplankton, benthos, and fish, for different predator species. These predictions provide empirical estimates of species- and size-specific feeding traits of fish, such as predator-prey mass ratios, individual prey mass, and the biomass contribution of different prey to predator diets. The functional groupings and feeding traits provided here help to further resolve our understanding of interactions within marine food webs and support the use of trait-based indicators in biodiversity assessments. Developing International consensus on how to assess marine food web status: Food web indicators can reveal how ecosystems are responding to environmental change and anthropogenic pressure in a way that cannot be inferred from studying habitat, species or assemblages alone. Systematic differences in response of typically smaller bodied organisms, feeding lower in the food web (planktivores) relative to those with bigger bodies that utilise different resources (benthivores, pisco-crustivores) and feed higher up the food web (piscivores), could profoundly alter the uptake of nutrients and the efficiency of communities in converting resources into biomass (i.e. ecosystem functioning which supports the provision of ecosystem services). Our Pilot Feeding Guild assessment for the OSPAR Quality Status Report 2023 shows that fish populations and their diversity are changing at different rates and even in different directions across the food web across OSPAR Regions. For instance, in the Bay of Biscay and Celtic Sea there were extensive temporal decreases in the biomass of consumers lower in the food web (planktivores) which contrasted with increases in those higher up (pisco-crustivores and piscivores). This demonstrates that the dominant energy pathways upon which species rely are already altering. Such changes could impact nutrient uptake and transfer efficiency across the food web, on feeding conditions for commercial fish species, higher predators (birds and mammals) and alter the extent of natural pressure on fish prey (e.g. plankton, benthos). Climate change projections: Current indicators of marine biodiversity status typically look backwards, but to achieve a desired state we need to foresee which interventions will be most effective and measure this against a shifting baseline caused by climate change. Comparable, quantitative information is currently lacking on the rate and scale of change in marine biodiversity across assemblages such that its trajectory and drivers remain uncertain. We developed a multidimensional approach to assess biodiversity that is applicable across different assemblages. Our approach incorporates the effect of rare species as well as change across spatial scales (i.e., alpha-, beta- and gamma-diversity calculated across Hill numbers). We then apply this to plankton, benthos and fish survey data collected across the NE Atlantic and, with ACTNOW funding, use Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) to reveal past, present and future biodiversity patterns predicted by changing habitat conditions. We make use of these projections in B-useful by developing a 'roadmap' for marine biodiversity to demonstrate how we can assess change relevant to international biodiversity reporting cycles, i.e. past, present and near future. We show that climate change is altering biodiversity both within assemblages, altering the contribution of rare species, and across the food web. Species richness is increasing for fish and benthos, reflecting poleward migration, but decreasing for phytoplankton and zooplankton, potentially disrupting energy transfer from lower to higher trophic levels. Our work provides quantitative, comparable information for multiple assemblages that could help forge international consensus for how to measure biodiversity against a shifting baseline, identify areas of high biodiversity that are critical to protect and move towards proactive management based on prediction. Many studies predict shifts in species distributions and community size composition in response to climate change, yet few have demonstrated how these changes will be distributed across marine food webs. We use Bayesian Additive Regression Trees to model how climate change will affect the habitat suitability of marine fish species across a range of body sizes and belonging to different feeding guilds, each with different habitat and feeding requirements in the northeast Atlantic shelf seas. Contrasting effects of climate change are predicted for feeding guilds, with spatially extensive decreases in the species richness of consumers lower in the food web (planktivores) but increases for those higher up (piscivores). Changing spatial patterns in predator-prey mass ratios and fish species size composition are also predicted for feeding guilds and across the fish assemblage. In combination, these changes could influence nutrient uptake and transformation, transfer efficiency and food web stability, and thus profoundly alter ecosystem structure and functioning. Balancing fisheries yields with species production rates could deliver more sustainable and nutritious catches: Ensuring global food security from the ocean requires alignment between what marine ecosystems can sustainably produce and what fisheries catch. Yet, fisheries yields often diverge from species production rates undermining the naturally emergent biomass size structures and with it, biodiversity, resilience, and long-term harvest sustainability. Here we offer an alternative vision based on empirically resolved data which more closely aligns with real ecological structures with big potential benefits for biodiversity and human health while sustaining income for fisheries. Using the Celtic Sea as a case study, we integrate independent estimates of fishing effort and fish abundance with nutritional and economic data to provide a novel framework for assessing current practice and guiding alternative scenarios. Our findings reveal a fundamental misalignment between fisheries yields and species production. Crucially, we show that aligning catch composition with species productivity could, with sufficient explicit safeguards, simultaneously deliver healthier diets, resilient ecosystems, and sustainable fisheries. |
| Exploitation Route | Our marine food web status assessment is being incorporated into the UK Marine Strategy 25 Year Plan Outcome Indicator Framework and further developed for future OSPAR assessments with the aim of making it a candidate food web indicator. Our predictions of change in marine food webs in response to climate change will help inform conservation strategies, such as identify which Highly Protected Marine Areas are most susceptible to change and where other conservation designations may be most effective into the future. |
| Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Environment |
| URL | https://oap.ospar.org/en/ospar-assessments/quality-status-reports/qsr-2023/indicator-assessments/feeding-guild-pilot-assessment/ |
| Description | Our Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds contributed to the OSPAR Quality Status Report 2023: Thompson, M.S.A., Lynam, C.P. and Preciado, I. 2022. Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. OSPAR Commission, London. Available at: https://oap.ospar.org/en/ospar-assessments/quality-status-reports/qsr-2023/indicatorassessments/feeding-guild-pilot-assessmen |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Environment |
| Description | Develop an indicator for marine food web status assessment |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Impact | We provided an indicator capable of revealing change in ecosystem structure and function across the OSPAR Area based on routinely collected survey data.This revealed significant and spatially extensive temporal changes across the food web, with decreases in the biomass of smaller planktivorous fish which contrasted with increases in the biomass of larger more piscivorous fish. The information we have generated can be tailored to fulfil other specific evidence needs, such as improving the parametrisation of ecosystem models and quantifying sustainable levels of human pressure. Our study provides evidence supporting a candidate food web indicator for the OSPAR Area to direct efforts to help nature recovery. |
| Description | Lead author of the Report by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Working Group on Biodiversity Science |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | We brought together international biodiversity experts to tackle critical evidence gaps and thus evidence more sustainable management of human activities in the Northeast Atlantic. Across the various biodiversity metrics, the abundances, distribution and productivity of key groups representing different trophic levels were in flux in many of the areas assessed. We provide a contribution on how benthic effect trait composition determines sea floor ecosystem functions, how these vary along environmental gradients but are similarly vulnerable to bottom trawling. Many of the observed changes in plankton and predicted changes in fish species distributions and food web properties were affected by climate change. For instance, most plankton lifeforms, which include groups of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and ichthyoplankton, have been declining in abundance throughout the northeast Atlantic in the long-term and these changes were associated either directly or indirectly with environmental change linked to climate change. The distribution of species richness across the fish component of the food web is also projected to be affected by climate change with spatially extensive increases in species richness largely driven by the expansion in range of smaller piscivores with relatively low predator-prey mass ratios by 2095 under RCP 4.5. Based on projections from ecosystem models, we provide how proactive, regionalized Nature-Based Solutions could ensure resilience and attain Good Environmental Status in the future, contributing to the recovery of both the ecological integrity and the socioeconomic benefits of marine ecosystems. Finally, using a global meta-analysis, we find that decommissioning options aimed at repurposing marine energy infrastructure into artificial reefs may not provide the intended benefits. Despite the wealth of evidence for biodiversity change presented here, we highlight the need to develop international consensus on how to operationalise effective biodiversity targets where thresholds and tipping points are insufficient to 'bend the curve' towards nature recovery. |
| URL | https://ices-library.figshare.com/articles/report/Working_Group_on_Biodiversity_Science_WGBIODIV_out... |
| Description | Proposal for a Pilot Assessment of Fish Community Status |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | Previously, information from FC2, FC3, FW3 and FW7 was presented in individual reports and later synthesised within fish and food web thematic assessments. However, evidence showed that information across these indicators could be integrated, enabling a deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of change in fish and food webs while reducing redundancy across assessments. For example, species richness and mean maximum length of feeding guilds were used to identify how climate change affects the distribution of diversity across marine food webs (Thompson et al. 2023). Similarly, Lynam et al. (2023) reported combined indicator responses to fishing using end-to-end modelling. The indicator Changes in Phytoplankton and Zooplankton Communities provided a strong precedent, supported by OSPAR, for reporting multiple ecological responses together to deliver a more holistic assessment of biodiversity change within and across assemblages. Applying a similar approach to fish and food webs helped focus policy and ecosystem management interventions on key drivers of change by clarifying how human pressures alter marine ecosystem structure and functioning. Previous assessments had divided fish into demersal and pelagic components based on expert judgement. In contrast, feeding guilds provided a more nuanced, data-driven and peer-reviewed framework for categorising fish based on body size, taxonomy and feeding behaviour (Thompson et al. 2025). Using feeding guilds to compartmentalise the fish assemblage into food-web components (planktivores, benthivores, bentho-piscivores and piscivores) helped identify where changes in species composition (FC3) and community size structure (FW3) occurred within the fish assemblage rather than considering each indicator independently. Specifically, temporal changes in mean maximum length, typical length, species richness and biomass within feeding guilds, and across the whole fish assemblage observed via otter trawls, provided a more complete picture of fish biodiversity change. Furthermore, patterns in the fish assemblage could be directly linked to other indicators, such as plankton and benthos, reflecting empirical links between feeding guilds and their prey. Building on this framework, statistical modelling was incorporated following the approach used in Changes in Phytoplankton and Zooplankton Communities, which linked indicator trends to gradients in human pressures and environmental change. This approach built on evidence attributing changes in feeding guilds to fishing pressure and temperature (Thompson et al. 2020). As a result, deterioration or improvement could be assessed using trends in indicators whose baselines shift with climate change or lack clear thresholds. For example, species richness increased in response to climate change but not uniformly across feeding guilds (Thompson et al. 2023). This integrated approach also streamlined reporting for fish and food webs and produced clearer outputs for evidence users. FW3 was adopted as the primary size-based indicator in place of FC2 because it aligned with size-spectrum theory, avoided arbitrary thresholds, incorporated a larger portion of the fish assemblage including smaller fish, and was less influenced by changes in a small number of large species. Consequently, FC2 was discontinued and FW3 was retained. Integrating FC3, FW3 and FW7 substantially reduced duplication in reporting, as these indicators shared underlying datasets, were influenced by similar human pressures, and relied on comparable statistical approaches to assess temporal change. Bringing these indicators together therefore removed duplicated text and presented more concise, holistic and impactful evidence. |
| Description | ACTNOW: Advancing understanding of Cumulative Impacts on European marine biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services for human wellbeing |
| Amount | € 10,632,000 (EUR) |
| Funding ID | 101060072 |
| Organisation | European Union |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | European Union (EU) |
| Start | 03/2022 |
| End | 03/2026 |
| Description | B-USEFUL: user-oriented Biodiversity and ecosystem services solutions for improved monitoring and management in USEr-oriented Frameworks for European sea Landscapes |
| Amount | € 10,900,000 (EUR) |
| Funding ID | 101059823 |
| Organisation | European Union |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | European Union (EU) |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 09/2027 |
| Description | Biodiversity patterns under a shifting baseline: important areas for sensitive fish species and ecosystem functioning to assist marine spatial planning |
| Amount | £45,847 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department For Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (DEFRA) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2023 |
| End | 03/2024 |
| Description | Improving decision-making in spatial marine management: increasing the effectiveness of UK marine biodiversity evidence |
| Amount | £50,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department For Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (DEFRA) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2025 |
| End | 03/2026 |
| Description | Putting it together: linking changes in plankton and fisheries |
| Amount | £109,535 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department For Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (DEFRA) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2023 |
| End | 03/2024 |
| Description | Using big data to understand change in the food webs of Highly Protected Marine Areas |
| Amount | £70,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department For Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (DEFRA) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2024 |
| End | 03/2025 |
| Title | A data product derived from Northeast Atlantic groundfish data from scientific trawl surveys 1983-2020 |
| Description | This is a data product to support state indicators that are based from groundfish biological data, derived using primary data from surveys undertaken in the Northeast Atlantic between 1983 and 2020. Catch records by taxonomic group and by length category in terms of biomass and numbers of fish standardised to duration (per hour) or to the area swept by the haul. Data are available from multiple surveys using data downloaded from the ICES database of trawl surveys (DATRAS) once quality-controlled and standardised following procedures detailed in Greenstreet and Moriarty 2017. Data file names reflect the OSPAR region sampled, country conducting the sampling, fishing gear and time of years of sampling (as defined by Greenstreet and Moriarty 2017), e.g.: BBICFraBT4 refers to Bay of Biscay and Iberian Coast data from France by a Beam Trawl survey in quarter 4 of the year and GNSIntOT3 refers to Greater North Sea data from International (multiple countries) sampling by an Otter Trawl survey in quarter 3 of the year etc. Greenstreet, S.P.R. and Moriarty, M. (2017) OSPAR Interim Assessment 2107 Fish Indicator Data Manual (Relating to Version 2 of the Groundfish Survey Monitoring and Assessment Data Product). Scottish Marine and Freshwater Science Vol 8 No 17, 83pp. DOI: 10.7489/1985-1 Scientific survey data collected by multiple countries and made available through ICES DATRAS (https://www.ices.dk/data/data-portals/Pages/DATRAS.aspx). Swept-area estimates were generated by ICES 2021ab (ICES. 2021a. Workshop on the production of swept-area estimates for all hauls in DATRAS for biodiversity assessments (WKSAE-DATRAS). ICES Scientific Reports. 3:74. https://doi.org/10.17895/ices.pub.8232; ICES. 2021b. Workshop on the production of abundance estimates for sensitive species (WKABSENS); ICES Scientific Reports. 3:96. https://doi.org/10.17895/ices.pub.8299). ICES Data Centre host the database of trawl surveys (DATRAS) for groundfish and beam trawl data. DATRAS has an integrated quality check utility. All data, before entering the database, have to pass an extensive quality check. Despite this errors and missing data arise, which are subsequently dealt with by the data submitters from the contributing countries as required. However, this screening process was implemented in 2009 for data from 2004 onwards. Since some survey time-series extend back to the 1960s, historic data (unless re-evaluated and re-submitted by contributing countries) may not have been subject to the same level of quality control as these more recent data. Furthermore, the type of information collected, the level of detail and resolution in the data, has gradually evolved over time. In order to derive a single format, quality assured monitoring programme data product covering the entire Northeast Atlantic region inconsistencies in the datasets required resolution. These corrections are detailed in ICES 2021a,b: Biological data for trawl surveys are downloaded directly from DATRAS in raw exchange format (known as "HL data"). Ancillary data were processed by ICES 2021a,b to create the "SweptAreaAssessmentOutput" (which replaces the "HH data") and these were downloaded from the same location: https://datras.ices.dk/Data_products/Download/Download_Data_public.aspx Data are processed to create a standalone data product to be used for indicator assessments of fish and elasmobranchs. Initially, hauls are subset to determine the Standard Monitoring Programme (i.e. excluding invalid hauls including those of duration shorter than 13 minutes or longer than 66 minutes, following Greenstreet and Moriarty 2017) and these hauls are used to define the Standard Survey Area by excluding areas sampled infrequently over time). Biological data were accepted with ICES SpecVal of 1, 4, 7, 10 (see http://vocab.ices.dk/ for further information on SpecVal categories). Additional QA/QC is made at this step to determine if species identification issues are present in the raw biological data and these were discussed and agreed with the Chief Scientist for each survey. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Our multidimensional assessment of biodiversity projections across co-occurring marine assemblages revealed divergent temporal trajectories under climate change. Notably, widespread increases in species richness projected particularly for fish but also benthos to a lesser extent, were not matched by similar changes for zooplankton and phytoplankton. Changes in the proportion of rare species were central to climate-driven marine biodiversity change but was more complex than a simple poleward influx of species from the south. Crucially, assessing changes in the proportion of rare species can reveal biodiversity shifts not evident from species richness or composition alone, offering early warning of change before extirpations and supporting the development of indicators that enable preventive rather than reactive policy interventions |
| URL | https://www.cefas.co.uk/data-and-publications/dois/a-data-product-derived-from-northeast-atlantic-gr... |
| Title | Modelled and observed fish feeding traits for the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans (1836-2020) and population estimates of fish with different feeding traits from Northeast Atlantic scientific trawl surveys (1997-2020) |
| Description | The data we provide here have been assembled to categorise fish into feeding guilds and determine change in populations of fish with different feeding traits relevant to food web status assessment advocated by OSPAR. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Our work has been adopted at an international level by OSPAR (The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic) and nationally the UK Marine Strategy Outcome Indicator Framework as a pilot of marine food web status assessment. Publicly accessible data is a prerequisite for such indicators of to be adopted in international and national policy processes. |
| URL | https://doi.org/10.14466/CefasDataHub.149 |
| Title | Modelled projections of habitat for fish species feeding guilds around North-western Europe under climate change, 2010 to 2095 |
| Description | These data are Bayesian Additive Regression Tree model annual predictions for habitat suitability of marine fish species across a range of body sizes and belonging to different feeding guilds from 2010 to 2095 in 5 year intervals in the northeast Atlantic shelf seas. Feeding guilds were allocated based on classifications following Thompson et al. (2020). The purpose of this study was to predict how climate change could affect the species richness of consumers lower in the food web (planktivores), compared to those intermediate (benthivores) and higher up (piscivores). In brief, a collation of trophic interactions spanning the northeast Atlantic shelf seas has been applied to define feeding guilds by grouping fish species size classes (we use the taxonomic level of Gobiidae and Ammodytes for taxa that are not consistently identified to species) that have prey taxa in common, and whose prey differentiate them from other predator guilds based on cluster analysis. Taxon-specific size categories were defined as: <3 cm as larvae; small juvenile fish between 3 cm and half of length at maturity; juvenile-medium fish from half of length at maturity to length at maturity; medium fish from length at maturity to half-maximum length; and all remaining larger fish as large. Taxon-specific length at maturity and maximum length (i.e., asymptotic length at infinity) were estimated using the R package Fishlife (Thorson et al., 2017). Environmental projections were derived from the coupled marine ecosystem models POLCOMS/NEMO-ERSEM. We focus on two emission scenarios (representative concentration pathways, RCPs) developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5): RCP4.5, the "stabilization scenario", characterised by medium emissions and high mitigations, and the "no mitigation policy" scenario RCP8.5, derived from high fossil fuel emission and low mitigations. We use projections of temperature, salinity, pH, nitrate, phosphate, dissolved oxygen, current velocity, chlorophyll, gross primary production, non-living organic carbon, zooplankton carbon concentration and secondary carbon production by zooplankton in our predictive habitat models. For temperature, salinity, current velocity, dissolved oxygen, and pH both surface and bottom mean annual averages were considered, and in the case of temperature, also the difference between bottom and surface values, to account for stratification. For chlorophyll, gross primary production, non-living organic carbon, phosphate, nitrate, zooplankton carbon concentration and secondary carbon production by zooplankton the total across the water column was used, rather than surface or bottom values. We also include depth (from the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans GEBCO; www.gebco.net, at 15 second resolution), distance to coast and substrate composition (median grain size and percentages of mud, sand and gravel from Wilson et al., 2018) to capture key spatial gradients that affect habitat suitability for fish. All environmental data was processed onto a 10 km by 10 km grid, and because an annual mean of, e.g., temperature, does not capture the environmental variability that ultimately determines the thresholds within which biota must survive; for temperature, salinity, pH, oxygen and current speed we also include the standard deviation of the 12 monthly means in each year, for all locations within a radius of 75 km of each grid cell, in order to provide a measure of spatio-temporal heterogeneity. For the environmental variables where surface and bottom values were extracted, we use sea surface values to model habitat suitability for planktivores, which are largely pelagic species, and seabed values for the benthivores and piscivores which are largely demersal species. Pairwise Pearson correlation coefficients were computed for the set of environmental variables used to model the habitat of planktivores and of non-planktivores separately, to assess multicollinearity. Variables were removed if they correlated with another >0.7. Additionally we provide data on model performance and presence/absence thresholds, in the file "Model performance and threshold.xlsx". Model performance is measured via the area under the curve (AUC) of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) plot, the AUC of the Precision-Recall (PR) plot (He & Garcia, 2009), and the Miller slope (Miller et al., 1991). We assess model performance in both space and time. Spatial performance was analysed via 8-fold block cross validation using the R library "blockCV" (Valavi et al., 2019). Temporal performance of the models was assessed by training a new model that excluded the last 5 years of survey data (2015 to 2019), using the resulting model to predict to those 5 years, a "novel time period" for that model. These data were produced for the study in the article "Climate change affects the distribution of diversity across marine food webs", by Murray S. A. Thompson, Elena Couce, Michaela Schratzberger and Christopher P. Lynam, in Global Change Biology (in press). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | TBC |
| URL | https://www.cefas.co.uk/data-and-publications/dois/modelled-projections-of-habitat-for-fish-species-... |
| Title | Sustainable seafood consumption in SW choice experiment |
| Description | Choice experiment dataset collecting data from an online survey about seafood consumption in the SW England. A random sample from the general population in the SW England (N=1000) answered to an anonymised online survey questionnaire collecting information about seafood consumption habits, preferences and attitudes. The survey questionnaire was administered using the Qualtrics online platform and the respondent panel was provided by a professional survey company. The survey was administered between October and November 2023. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The Pyramids of Life team at Cefas and the University of East Anglia uses the dataset for further analysis on sustainable seafood consumption in the UK including to inform the national survey. Preliminary results were presented at the enevcon 2024 conference session that Pyramids of Life co-organised. |
| Title | biodiversity-estimation-across-spatial-scales-and-Hill-numbers |
| Description | Rarefaction and extrapolation based on Hill numbers offer a unified framework to quantify the multidimensional and scale-dependent properties of biodiversity that can be applied similarly across assemblages to estimate alpha-, beta- and gamma-diversity (i.e. sample-level species richness, regional differences in species composition between samples, and regional species richness, respectively; Chao et al., 2014, 2024; Thompson et al., 2021). All biodiversity calculations accounted for variation in sampling effort, following Thompson et al. (2021), with rarefaction and extrapolation implemented in the iNEXT package in R (Hsieh et al., 2014). Here is an example of how to estimate alpha-, beta-, and gamma-diversity across Hill numbers using publicly available fish survey data from Lynam & Ribeiro (2022). This approach forms the basis for: "Mapping benthic biodiversity to facilitate future sustainable development". Cooper, K.M., Thompson, M.S.A., Bolam, S.G., Peach, C.M., Webb, T.J., Downie, A-L. 2025. Ecosphere (in press); "From plankton to fish: 21st-century redistribution of marine biodiversity and the changing role of rare species" Couce, E., Greig, L., Engelhard, G., Pinnegar, J., Cooper K.M., Hélaouët, P., Pecuchet, L., Peck, M.A., Lindegren, M., Thompson, M.S.A. (in review). |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This work forms the basis of a report for the EU Horizon project B-USEFUL which proposes how the status of marine biodiversity can be assessed in the past, present and future, to help meet global biodiversity targets given climate driven change. It has also formed the basis of the biodiversity analysis for an ongoing UK MPA review commissioned by Defra. |
| URL | https://github.com/MurraySAThompson/biodiversity-estimation-across-spatial-scales-and-Hill-numbers |
| Title | fish-feeding-guild-classifcation |
| Description | We make use of predator-prey body size scaling relationships to draw on multiple stomach content databases and derive comparable fish feeding trait information for the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans (https://doi.org/10.14466/CefasDataHub.149; Thompson et al. 2024). Here we show how to test the effectiveness of different approaches to classifying fish feeding guilds based on some example stomach contents data using cluster analyses and analysis of variance models. |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This work forms the basis for how fish feeding guilds were classified for the OSPAR Pilot Feeding Guild Assessment. This work was undertaken for the study "Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans ", by Murray S.A. Thompson, Izaskun Preciado, Federico Maioli, Valerio Bartolino, Andrea Belgrano, Michele Casini, Pierre Cresson, Elena Eriksen, Gema Hernandez-Milian, Ingibjörg G. Jónsdóttir, Stefan Neuenfeldt, John K. Pinnegar, Stefán Ragnarsson, Sabine Schückel, Ulrike Schückel, Brian E. Smith, María Ángeles Torres, Thomas J. Webb, and Christopher P. Lynam (in review; see also Thompson et al., 2023). Thompson, M. S. A., Lynam, C. P., & Preciado, I. (2023). Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. https://oap.ospar.org/en/ospar-assessments/quality-status-reports/qsr-2023/indicator-assessments/feeding-guild-pilot-assessment Thompson, M. S. A., Preciado, I., Maioli, F., Bartolino, V., Belgrano, A., Casini, M., Cresson, P., Eriksen, E., Hernandez-Milian, G., Jónsdóttir, I. G., Neuenfeldt, S., Pinnegar, J. K., Ragnarsson, S., Schückel, S., Schückel, U., Smith, B. E., Torres, M. Á., Webb, T. J., & Lynam, C. P. (2024). Modelled and observed fish feeding traits for the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans (1836-2020) and population estimates of fish with different feeding traits from Northeast Atlantic scientific trawl surveys (1997-2020). Cefas, UK. V1. doi: https://doi.org/10.14466/CefasDataHub.149 |
| URL | https://github.com/MurraySAThompson/fish-feeding-guild-classifcation |
| Title | fish-feeding-traits-glmm |
| Description | We make use of predator-prey body size scaling relationships to draw on multiple stomach content databases and derive comparable fish feeding trait information for the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans (https://doi.org/10.14466/CefasDataHub.149; Thompson et al. 2024). Here is an example showing how to predict individual prey size (log10 transformed wet mass in grams) for fish in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans using published fish stomach contents data with information on predator taxa, predator size (log10 transformed wet mass in grams) and prey functional groups (i.e., fish, zooplankton, benthos, nekton, other). We fit a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) using Template Model Builder (TMB). |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This work was undertaken for the study "Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans ", by Murray S.A. Thompson, Izaskun Preciado, Federico Maioli, Valerio Bartolino, Andrea Belgrano, Michele Casini, Pierre Cresson, Elena Eriksen, Gema Hernandez-Milian, Ingibjörg G. Jónsdóttir, Stefan Neuenfeldt, John K. Pinnegar, Stefán Ragnarsson, Sabine Schückel, Ulrike Schückel, Brian E. Smith, María Ángeles Torres, Thomas J. Webb, and Christopher P. Lynam; https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2447-2025. |
| URL | https://github.com/MurraySAThompson/fish-feeding-guild-classifcation |
| Description | ACTNOW |
| Organisation | Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The work related to Pyramids of Life formed the core of task 5.1 on biodiversity projections. This Task provides estimates and projections of short-, mid- and long-term trends of biodiversity change due to climate, ocean and land-based sector development and management 'what-if' scenarios. This includes decadal predictions (2030) and future projections (2050, 2100) of biodiversity for different scenarios of climate change (carbon emission), sector development and associated pressures, and management. Projections are made using both qualitative network (e.g. Bayesian belief) and quantitative statistical and numerical models to estimate/project future biodiversity trends and assess future key risks to biodiversity. A key aim is to identify additive and interacting pressures & responses. |
| Collaborator Contribution | They collaborated in our task and we collaborated on theirs, sharing skills, knowledge, data and expertise. |
| Impact | We are still working on the outputs for WP5. It is multidisciplinary, involving social scientists, statisticians, ecologists, biologists and climate scientists |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | ACTNOW |
| Organisation | Dutch Research Council |
| Department | Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The work related to Pyramids of Life formed the core of task 5.1 on biodiversity projections. This Task provides estimates and projections of short-, mid- and long-term trends of biodiversity change due to climate, ocean and land-based sector development and management 'what-if' scenarios. This includes decadal predictions (2030) and future projections (2050, 2100) of biodiversity for different scenarios of climate change (carbon emission), sector development and associated pressures, and management. Projections are made using both qualitative network (e.g. Bayesian belief) and quantitative statistical and numerical models to estimate/project future biodiversity trends and assess future key risks to biodiversity. A key aim is to identify additive and interacting pressures & responses. |
| Collaborator Contribution | They collaborated in our task and we collaborated on theirs, sharing skills, knowledge, data and expertise. |
| Impact | We are still working on the outputs for WP5. It is multidisciplinary, involving social scientists, statisticians, ecologists, biologists and climate scientists |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | ACTNOW |
| Organisation | Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) |
| Country | Greece |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The work related to Pyramids of Life formed the core of task 5.1 on biodiversity projections. This Task provides estimates and projections of short-, mid- and long-term trends of biodiversity change due to climate, ocean and land-based sector development and management 'what-if' scenarios. This includes decadal predictions (2030) and future projections (2050, 2100) of biodiversity for different scenarios of climate change (carbon emission), sector development and associated pressures, and management. Projections are made using both qualitative network (e.g. Bayesian belief) and quantitative statistical and numerical models to estimate/project future biodiversity trends and assess future key risks to biodiversity. A key aim is to identify additive and interacting pressures & responses. |
| Collaborator Contribution | They collaborated in our task and we collaborated on theirs, sharing skills, knowledge, data and expertise. |
| Impact | We are still working on the outputs for WP5. It is multidisciplinary, involving social scientists, statisticians, ecologists, biologists and climate scientists |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | ACTNOW |
| Organisation | Norwegian Institute of Marine Research |
| Country | Norway |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The work related to Pyramids of Life formed the core of task 5.1 on biodiversity projections. This Task provides estimates and projections of short-, mid- and long-term trends of biodiversity change due to climate, ocean and land-based sector development and management 'what-if' scenarios. This includes decadal predictions (2030) and future projections (2050, 2100) of biodiversity for different scenarios of climate change (carbon emission), sector development and associated pressures, and management. Projections are made using both qualitative network (e.g. Bayesian belief) and quantitative statistical and numerical models to estimate/project future biodiversity trends and assess future key risks to biodiversity. A key aim is to identify additive and interacting pressures & responses. |
| Collaborator Contribution | They collaborated in our task and we collaborated on theirs, sharing skills, knowledge, data and expertise. |
| Impact | We are still working on the outputs for WP5. It is multidisciplinary, involving social scientists, statisticians, ecologists, biologists and climate scientists |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | B-useful |
| Organisation | Dutch Research Council |
| Department | Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Cefas scientists will assist B-USEFUL to co-develop a set of user-oriented solutions and decision-support tools building and improving upon available European infrastructure for monitoring, data collection and ecosystem-based science advice. These tools and solutions will allow end-users to identify and visualize areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as identify trade-offs with other maritime sectors (e.g., fishing and offshore energy) to better prioritize conservation efforts in biodiversity hotspots, or other high-risk areas requiring a stricter degree of protection. To achieve this overall goal B-USEFUL will pursue the following objectives serving to inform and improve marine management and governance frameworks for biodiversity protection in European Seas within the broader context of EBM and MSP: 1. Identify key end-user needs to support decision-making for spatial planning and sustainable management of European marine biodiversity and ecosystem services 2. Co-develop a set of operational indicators, targets and "what-if" scenarios of multiple interacting stressors acting on marine biodiversity and ecosystem services 3. Compile and standardize available scientific survey data on marine species distributions, abundances, traits, as well as human pressures impacting marine biodiversity by maximizing the exploitation and uptake of existing European data infrastructures 4. Advance our understanding of the adverse cumulative impacts of climate change and anthropogenic pressures acting on marine biodiversity by assessing the status, trends, and drivers of multiple biodiversity indicators and their links to ecosystem functions and services 5. Quantify the risk, vulnerability and resilience of species, communities and habitats to human impacts and the degree to which conservation actions can reduce exposure and sensitivity 6. Develop and apply new model infrastructure to better characterize and forecast changes in marine biodiversity and ecosystem services under various end-user defined scenarios of change 7. Co-develop interactive, user-oriented tools and solutions for decision-making and participatory management of marine biodiversity and ecosystem services |
| Collaborator Contribution | This is described above |
| Impact | D3.1 Report on temporal trends and spatial patterns of multiple biodiversity indicators; D3.2 Report on state-pressure relationships and cumulative impacts across European waters |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | B-useful |
| Organisation | Spanish Institute of Oceanography |
| Country | Spain |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Cefas scientists will assist B-USEFUL to co-develop a set of user-oriented solutions and decision-support tools building and improving upon available European infrastructure for monitoring, data collection and ecosystem-based science advice. These tools and solutions will allow end-users to identify and visualize areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as identify trade-offs with other maritime sectors (e.g., fishing and offshore energy) to better prioritize conservation efforts in biodiversity hotspots, or other high-risk areas requiring a stricter degree of protection. To achieve this overall goal B-USEFUL will pursue the following objectives serving to inform and improve marine management and governance frameworks for biodiversity protection in European Seas within the broader context of EBM and MSP: 1. Identify key end-user needs to support decision-making for spatial planning and sustainable management of European marine biodiversity and ecosystem services 2. Co-develop a set of operational indicators, targets and "what-if" scenarios of multiple interacting stressors acting on marine biodiversity and ecosystem services 3. Compile and standardize available scientific survey data on marine species distributions, abundances, traits, as well as human pressures impacting marine biodiversity by maximizing the exploitation and uptake of existing European data infrastructures 4. Advance our understanding of the adverse cumulative impacts of climate change and anthropogenic pressures acting on marine biodiversity by assessing the status, trends, and drivers of multiple biodiversity indicators and their links to ecosystem functions and services 5. Quantify the risk, vulnerability and resilience of species, communities and habitats to human impacts and the degree to which conservation actions can reduce exposure and sensitivity 6. Develop and apply new model infrastructure to better characterize and forecast changes in marine biodiversity and ecosystem services under various end-user defined scenarios of change 7. Co-develop interactive, user-oriented tools and solutions for decision-making and participatory management of marine biodiversity and ecosystem services |
| Collaborator Contribution | This is described above |
| Impact | D3.1 Report on temporal trends and spatial patterns of multiple biodiversity indicators; D3.2 Report on state-pressure relationships and cumulative impacts across European waters |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | B-useful |
| Organisation | Technical University of Denmark |
| Country | Denmark |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Cefas scientists will assist B-USEFUL to co-develop a set of user-oriented solutions and decision-support tools building and improving upon available European infrastructure for monitoring, data collection and ecosystem-based science advice. These tools and solutions will allow end-users to identify and visualize areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as identify trade-offs with other maritime sectors (e.g., fishing and offshore energy) to better prioritize conservation efforts in biodiversity hotspots, or other high-risk areas requiring a stricter degree of protection. To achieve this overall goal B-USEFUL will pursue the following objectives serving to inform and improve marine management and governance frameworks for biodiversity protection in European Seas within the broader context of EBM and MSP: 1. Identify key end-user needs to support decision-making for spatial planning and sustainable management of European marine biodiversity and ecosystem services 2. Co-develop a set of operational indicators, targets and "what-if" scenarios of multiple interacting stressors acting on marine biodiversity and ecosystem services 3. Compile and standardize available scientific survey data on marine species distributions, abundances, traits, as well as human pressures impacting marine biodiversity by maximizing the exploitation and uptake of existing European data infrastructures 4. Advance our understanding of the adverse cumulative impacts of climate change and anthropogenic pressures acting on marine biodiversity by assessing the status, trends, and drivers of multiple biodiversity indicators and their links to ecosystem functions and services 5. Quantify the risk, vulnerability and resilience of species, communities and habitats to human impacts and the degree to which conservation actions can reduce exposure and sensitivity 6. Develop and apply new model infrastructure to better characterize and forecast changes in marine biodiversity and ecosystem services under various end-user defined scenarios of change 7. Co-develop interactive, user-oriented tools and solutions for decision-making and participatory management of marine biodiversity and ecosystem services |
| Collaborator Contribution | This is described above |
| Impact | D3.1 Report on temporal trends and spatial patterns of multiple biodiversity indicators; D3.2 Report on state-pressure relationships and cumulative impacts across European waters |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | International Convention for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV) |
| Organisation | Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg |
| Department | Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I have been chairing WGBIODIV since 2021, developing a strong international collaborative network, leading and co-authoring papers and reports that provide evidence of marine biodiversity change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Colleagues representing governments and academic institutions from across the North Atlantic have authored papers and reports, shared data and most importantly helped develop consensus, e.g., within ICES and OSPAR, on how to assess marine biodiversity and sustainable levels of human pressure. |
| Impact | 'Predictors of long-term variability in NE Atlantic plankton communities' 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175793; 'Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans' 10.5194/essd-2024-102 (in press) 'Assessing sea floor functional biodiversity and vulnerability' 10.3354/meps14270 'Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. OSPAR Commission, London' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369031275_Pilot_Assessment_of_Feeding_Guilds_In_OSPAR_2023_The_2023_Quality_Status_Report_for_the_Northeast_Atlantic_OSPAR_Commission_London#fullTextFileContent ICES. 2025. Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV). ICES Scientific Reports (in press) |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | International Convention for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV) |
| Organisation | Dutch Research Council |
| Department | Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I have been chairing WGBIODIV since 2021, developing a strong international collaborative network, leading and co-authoring papers and reports that provide evidence of marine biodiversity change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Colleagues representing governments and academic institutions from across the North Atlantic have authored papers and reports, shared data and most importantly helped develop consensus, e.g., within ICES and OSPAR, on how to assess marine biodiversity and sustainable levels of human pressure. |
| Impact | 'Predictors of long-term variability in NE Atlantic plankton communities' 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175793; 'Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans' 10.5194/essd-2024-102 (in press) 'Assessing sea floor functional biodiversity and vulnerability' 10.3354/meps14270 'Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. OSPAR Commission, London' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369031275_Pilot_Assessment_of_Feeding_Guilds_In_OSPAR_2023_The_2023_Quality_Status_Report_for_the_Northeast_Atlantic_OSPAR_Commission_London#fullTextFileContent ICES. 2025. Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV). ICES Scientific Reports (in press) |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | International Convention for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV) |
| Organisation | French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | I have been chairing WGBIODIV since 2021, developing a strong international collaborative network, leading and co-authoring papers and reports that provide evidence of marine biodiversity change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Colleagues representing governments and academic institutions from across the North Atlantic have authored papers and reports, shared data and most importantly helped develop consensus, e.g., within ICES and OSPAR, on how to assess marine biodiversity and sustainable levels of human pressure. |
| Impact | 'Predictors of long-term variability in NE Atlantic plankton communities' 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175793; 'Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans' 10.5194/essd-2024-102 (in press) 'Assessing sea floor functional biodiversity and vulnerability' 10.3354/meps14270 'Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. OSPAR Commission, London' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369031275_Pilot_Assessment_of_Feeding_Guilds_In_OSPAR_2023_The_2023_Quality_Status_Report_for_the_Northeast_Atlantic_OSPAR_Commission_London#fullTextFileContent ICES. 2025. Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV). ICES Scientific Reports (in press) |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | International Convention for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV) |
| Organisation | Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos |
| Country | Spain |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | I have been chairing WGBIODIV since 2021, developing a strong international collaborative network, leading and co-authoring papers and reports that provide evidence of marine biodiversity change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Colleagues representing governments and academic institutions from across the North Atlantic have authored papers and reports, shared data and most importantly helped develop consensus, e.g., within ICES and OSPAR, on how to assess marine biodiversity and sustainable levels of human pressure. |
| Impact | 'Predictors of long-term variability in NE Atlantic plankton communities' 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175793; 'Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans' 10.5194/essd-2024-102 (in press) 'Assessing sea floor functional biodiversity and vulnerability' 10.3354/meps14270 'Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. OSPAR Commission, London' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369031275_Pilot_Assessment_of_Feeding_Guilds_In_OSPAR_2023_The_2023_Quality_Status_Report_for_the_Northeast_Atlantic_OSPAR_Commission_London#fullTextFileContent ICES. 2025. Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV). ICES Scientific Reports (in press) |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | International Convention for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV) |
| Organisation | National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration |
| Department | National Severe Storms Laboratory, NOAA, USA |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | I have been chairing WGBIODIV since 2021, developing a strong international collaborative network, leading and co-authoring papers and reports that provide evidence of marine biodiversity change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Colleagues representing governments and academic institutions from across the North Atlantic have authored papers and reports, shared data and most importantly helped develop consensus, e.g., within ICES and OSPAR, on how to assess marine biodiversity and sustainable levels of human pressure. |
| Impact | 'Predictors of long-term variability in NE Atlantic plankton communities' 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175793; 'Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans' 10.5194/essd-2024-102 (in press) 'Assessing sea floor functional biodiversity and vulnerability' 10.3354/meps14270 'Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. OSPAR Commission, London' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369031275_Pilot_Assessment_of_Feeding_Guilds_In_OSPAR_2023_The_2023_Quality_Status_Report_for_the_Northeast_Atlantic_OSPAR_Commission_London#fullTextFileContent ICES. 2025. Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV). ICES Scientific Reports (in press) |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | International Convention for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV) |
| Organisation | Norwegian Institute for Nature Research |
| Country | Norway |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | I have been chairing WGBIODIV since 2021, developing a strong international collaborative network, leading and co-authoring papers and reports that provide evidence of marine biodiversity change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Colleagues representing governments and academic institutions from across the North Atlantic have authored papers and reports, shared data and most importantly helped develop consensus, e.g., within ICES and OSPAR, on how to assess marine biodiversity and sustainable levels of human pressure. |
| Impact | 'Predictors of long-term variability in NE Atlantic plankton communities' 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175793; 'Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans' 10.5194/essd-2024-102 (in press) 'Assessing sea floor functional biodiversity and vulnerability' 10.3354/meps14270 'Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. OSPAR Commission, London' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369031275_Pilot_Assessment_of_Feeding_Guilds_In_OSPAR_2023_The_2023_Quality_Status_Report_for_the_Northeast_Atlantic_OSPAR_Commission_London#fullTextFileContent ICES. 2025. Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV). ICES Scientific Reports (in press) |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | International Convention for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV) |
| Organisation | Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences |
| Country | Sweden |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I have been chairing WGBIODIV since 2021, developing a strong international collaborative network, leading and co-authoring papers and reports that provide evidence of marine biodiversity change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Colleagues representing governments and academic institutions from across the North Atlantic have authored papers and reports, shared data and most importantly helped develop consensus, e.g., within ICES and OSPAR, on how to assess marine biodiversity and sustainable levels of human pressure. |
| Impact | 'Predictors of long-term variability in NE Atlantic plankton communities' 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175793; 'Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans' 10.5194/essd-2024-102 (in press) 'Assessing sea floor functional biodiversity and vulnerability' 10.3354/meps14270 'Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. OSPAR Commission, London' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369031275_Pilot_Assessment_of_Feeding_Guilds_In_OSPAR_2023_The_2023_Quality_Status_Report_for_the_Northeast_Atlantic_OSPAR_Commission_London#fullTextFileContent ICES. 2025. Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV). ICES Scientific Reports (in press) |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | International Convention for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV) |
| Organisation | University of Plymouth |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I have been chairing WGBIODIV since 2021, developing a strong international collaborative network, leading and co-authoring papers and reports that provide evidence of marine biodiversity change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Colleagues representing governments and academic institutions from across the North Atlantic have authored papers and reports, shared data and most importantly helped develop consensus, e.g., within ICES and OSPAR, on how to assess marine biodiversity and sustainable levels of human pressure. |
| Impact | 'Predictors of long-term variability in NE Atlantic plankton communities' 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175793; 'Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans' 10.5194/essd-2024-102 (in press) 'Assessing sea floor functional biodiversity and vulnerability' 10.3354/meps14270 'Pilot Assessment of Feeding Guilds. In: OSPAR, 2023: The 2023 Quality Status Report for the Northeast Atlantic. OSPAR Commission, London' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369031275_Pilot_Assessment_of_Feeding_Guilds_In_OSPAR_2023_The_2023_Quality_Status_Report_for_the_Northeast_Atlantic_OSPAR_Commission_London#fullTextFileContent ICES. 2025. Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV). ICES Scientific Reports (in press) |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Eastern Arc Podcast |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Project members from University of East Anglia (Grilli), University of Essex (Shurety), and Cefas (Schratzberger and Thompson) recorded a podcast hosted by the Eastern Arc Consortium, a strategic collaboration between the universities of East Anglia, Essex and Kent, aimed at introducing and explaining key aspects of the Pyramids of Life project to a lay audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://easternarc.ac.uk/news/new-podcast-released-pyramids-of-life/ |
| Description | Online talk at the 6th Informal Consultation Session of the Expert Group on Food Webs at the HELCOM conference (Helsinki, Finland) titled 'Developing a Marine Food Web Indicator' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Murray Thompson (Cefas) shared details of a new pilot assessment of marine feeding guilds that has been accepted by OSPAR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.ccb.se/event/2024-feb-helcom-consultation-eg-6 |
| Description | Poster presentation at the 5th International Symposium on the Effects of Climate Change on the World's Ocean (ECCWO5) titled 'Climate change affects the distribution of diversity across marine food webs' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of poster - Climate change affects the distribution of diversity across marine food webs - at dedicated two hour session, with team available to answer questions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Presentation on feeding guilds at World Biodiversity Forum (Davos, Switzerland) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Murray Thompson (Cefas) shared details of a pilot assessment of marine feeding guilds that has been accepted by OSPAR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presentation on feeding guilds to ICES Working Group on Biodiversity Science (WGBIODIV) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of work on feeding guilds by Biodiversity Science Working Group Chair, Murray Thompson. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.ices.dk/news-and-events/meeting-calendar/Pages/ICES-CalendarDisp.aspx?sd=cdedc00f-5612-e... |
| Description | Presentation to EU Horizon project, titled 'Temporal change in the vertical and horizontal biodiversity across marine food webs' (Lowestoft, UK) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Knowledge sharing with researchers from a marine focused EU Horizon project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presentation to OSPARs Intersessional Correspondence Group on the Coordination of Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring, Hamburg |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of feeding guild pilot assessment by Cefas PI, Murray Thompson. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://oap.ospar.org/en/ospar-assessments/quality-status-reports/qsr-2023/indicator-assessments/fee... |
| Description | Presentations 'Unravelling food web patterns across diverse ecosystems' and 'Developing a Marine Food Web indicator' to IMT School for Advanced Studies (Lucca. Italy) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Scientific talks by Pyramids of Life Co-Is, Dr Daniel Perkins (Brunel) and Dr Murray Thompson (Cefas), to researchers and students at IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca, Italy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presented work on quantitative links between plankton and planktivorous fish to Defra's Pelagic Habitats Expert Group (PHEG) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Opportunity to share initial findings of work examining the relationship between plankton and planktivorous fish with fisheries experts in Defra. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Seminar to the University of York Mathematical Biology Research Group (York, UK) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talks by Pyramids of Life researchers, Dr James Scott (Cefas) and Dr Murray Thompson (Cefas), to academics and students from the Mathematical Biology Research Group at University of York. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Talk at Challenger Conference (Oban, Scotland) titled 'Cod-u-later! Balanced harvesting - a case study' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr James Scott (Cefas) presented a case in favour of a balanced harvest approach to UK fisheries management based on a case study focused on the Celtic Sea. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://challenger2024.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/3401_ExOrdo-challenger2024-Version-3.pdf |
| Description | Talk at ICES Annual Science Conference (Dublin, Ireland) titled 'Climate change affects the distribution of diversity across marine food webs' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talk by Murray Thompson on how climate change affects the distribution of diversity across marine food webs, co-authored by Cefas colleagues Elena Couce, Michaela Schratzberger and Chris Lynam. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.ices.dk/events/asc/ASC2022/Pages/default.aspx |
| Description | Talk at ICES annual conference (Gateshead, UK) titled 'Establishing good pelagic habitat conditions for pelagic fish' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Lily Greig (Cefas) presented her latest work on how climate change impacts plankton and planktivorous fish biodiversity in the northeast Atlantic, examining links between food web components and their role in achieving Good Environmental Status. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Talk at SMMR annual conference (Bristol, UK) titled 'A food web effect of bottom trawling on benthivorous fish biomass' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr David Clare (Cefas) shared findings from his latest research into the impact of bottom trawling on benthivorous fish biomass. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.smmr.org.uk/annual-conference-breakdown/ |
| Description | Talk at SMMR annual conference (Bristol, UK) titled 'Developing a marine food web indicator' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Murray Thompson (Cefas) shared details of a new pilot assessment of marine feeding guilds that has been accepted by OSPAR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.smmr.org.uk/annual-conference-breakdown/ |
| Description | Talk at SMMR annual conference (Bristol, UK) titled 'Exploring threshold responses of fish communities to gradients of natural and anthropogenic stressors' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation by Dr Elena Couce (Cefas) sharing findings of novel research into the effects of natural and human stress factors on fish communities based on threshold responses. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.smmr.org.uk/annual-conference-breakdown/ |
| Description | Talk at SMMR annual conference (Bristol, UK) titled 'Quantifying the capacity of the oceans to support human needs' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Discussion of the ecological work that underpins the Pyramids of Life project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://pyramidsoflife.york.ac.uk/blog-newsletters |
| Description | Talk at a workshop addressing the role of MPAs in reaching the 30 x 30 biodiversity goals hosted by SLU AQUA (Department of Aquatic Resources, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) titled 'Developing a Marine Food Web Indicator' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Murray Thompson (Cefas) shared details of a new pilot assessment of marine feeding guilds that has been accepted by OSPAR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Talk to Defra's Healthy & Biologically Diverse Seas Evidence Group (HBDSEG) titled 'Developing a Marine Food Web Indicator' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Dr Murray Thompson (Cefas) shared details of a new pilot assessment of marine feeding guilds that has been accepted by OSPAR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Talk to Defra's Pelagic Habitats Expert Group (PHEG) titled 'Developing a Marine Food Web Indicator' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Dr Murray Thompson (Cefas) shared details of a new pilot assessment of marine feeding guilds that has been accepted by OSPAR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |