Project

Analyse voedselweb van de Noordzee (fiche)

The North Sea food-web is a network of trophic relationships and ecological interactions between organisms such as plankton, fish, birds, and marine mammals. The food-web may be changed by large-scale constructions of offshore wind parks, reduced fishing pressure or nature restoration, which may benefit certain species and be negative for others, thereby changing the food-web. In this project, the effects for management of changes in food-webs and their dynamics will be studied applying relevant food-web indicators.

In the coming years, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (LVVN) will face major nature conservation and restoration challenges. By applying food-web indicators to assess the environment, the functional role of species within an ecosystem or food-web can be clarified. This may help management protect species and ecosystem functions and stimulate development of ecosystem-based management according to visions for nature and responsible resource use.

The main research questions are:

  • How can food-webs (in the North Sea) be used to inform management and to guide policy?
  • How can relevant food-web indicators be used to assess impacts of activities, taking bottom-up- and top-down-effects, and indicator/sensitive species, into account, in relation to national and international management?

This project consists of four parts:

    1. A structural description of food-webs.
    2. A review of the current state of the art regarding the North Sea food-web concept (North Sea), including relevant examples of applications where food-web indicators have been used in national and international management.
    3. Evaluation of food-web indicators to evaluate the ecological status as well as stressors (e.g., sand extraction and sediment dumping, fisheries, shipping, wind energy, and climate change), for future assessment of different management options under different temporal and spatial scales.
    4. Elaboration of 1-2 chosen North Sea food-web examples where proposed food-web indicators are applied.

    Publications