SYNRESH

Synchronous Regime Shifts Across European Seas

Coordinatore	SIR ALISTER HARDY FOUNDATION FOR OCEAN SCIENCE    more  Organization address address: THE LABORATORY CITADEL HILL THE HOE PLYMOUTH city: PLYMOUTH postcode: PL1 2PB contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Gill Cognome: Tanner Email: send email Telefono: +44 1752 633292 Fax: +44 1752 600015
Nazionalità Coordinatore	United Kingdom [UK]
Totale costo	272˙980 €
EC contributo	272˙980 €
Programma	FP7-PEOPLE Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)
Code Call	FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF
Funding Scheme	MC-IEF
Anno di inizio	2012
Periodo (anno-mese-giorno)	2012-01-20   -   2014-01-19

 Partecipanti

#	participant	country	role	EC contrib. [€]
1	SIR ALISTER HARDY FOUNDATION FOR OCEAN SCIENCE  Organization address address: THE LABORATORY CITADEL HILL THE HOE PLYMOUTH city: PLYMOUTH postcode: PL1 2PB contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Gill Cognome: Tanner Email: send email Telefono: +44 1752 633292 Fax: +44 1752 600015	UK (PLYMOUTH)	coordinator	272˙980.00

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Regime shifts are abrupt changes encompassing a multitude of physical properties and ecosystem variables, which lead to new regime conditions. Regime shifts can cause large-scale losses of ecosystem services with severe consequences for human well-being. Recently regime shifts have been documented for various marine ecosystems. Novel research has found that many of those occurred quasi-simultaneously, raising the question about global-scale environmental forcing. In particular, all European seas seem to have underwent regime shifts in the late 1980s (Conversi et al., 2010). Understanding such co-occurrence is key to differentiating the role of large/hemispheric scale (climate) impacts from local/basin scale (eutrophication, overfishing, etc) impacts. This differentiation is in turn essential for both addressing marine ecosystem protection strategies, and understanding the climate – biota relationship in global warming scenarios. The aims of this project are (i) to address, via a comparative, multi-basins approach, the large-scale synchrony in regime shift timing and its drivers, and (ii) to begin to address the development of prevention and mitigation strategies to be used in future ecosystem-based managements.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

New analyses of ocean data have revealed that the world's oceans underwent a major ecological shift in the 1980s, likely caused by changing temperatures.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Regime shifts are abrupt, large-scale changes to ecosystems that can have a major and long-term impact on the environment. There is some evidence that regime shifts occurred in all European seas in the 1980s.

The EU-funded 'Synchronous regime shifts across European seas' (SYNRESH) project aimed to find out whether these regime changes were linked, and what could be the driving forces. They achieved these aims by collecting and scanning large amounts of data from 11 marine basins for patterns.

SYNRESH found that there was some synchronicity between regime shifts in the late 1980s: most basin ecosystems changed within a year of each other. While the definitive cause remains unclear, there is some evidence that changes in northern hemisphere temperature and artic air pressure drove these changes.

Researchers also looked at ecological pressures on a common species of plankton as a marker for regime shifts. They found that predation, sea temperature and currents had the biggest influence on species abundance.

SYNRESH has shown beyond reasonable doubt that large-scale drivers (such as temperature changes) exert a massive influence on global marine ecosystems. The project highlighted the urgent need for better indicators of marine ecosystem health and an early warning system for regime shifts.