Man induced change in community control in the north-western Black Sea: The top-down bottom-up balance

Overview & Synopsis

The present study shows how marine commercial fish food webs dramatically changed in the north-western Black Sea on both pelagic and benthic environments. Fisheries landings, diversity and equitability strongly decreased between 1965–1970 and 2001–2005. Fishes adapted their feeding behaviour to the increasingly low species diversity of the Black Sea communities. Their food web became poor and simplified following the loss of many top predator species and their trophic links. Linkage density, connectivity and Lyapunov stability proxy strongly decreased. The north-western Black Sea system switched from a complex top-down and bottom-up functioning pattern to a dominantly bottom-up functioning pattern. This study contributes to a better understanding of these transformations within the Danube–Black Sea system in the last decades. An attempt is made to relate these changes with river inputs, fisheries and coastal pollution.