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Historic trophic decline in New England’s coastal marine ecosystem

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Abstract

Overfishing is a worldwide occurrence that simplifies marine food webs, changes trophic patterns, and alters community structure, affecting not only the density of harvested species but also their trophic function. The northwestern Atlantic has a history of heavy fishing, and over the past century has also experienced destructive bottom fishing and harmful mobile fishing gear. After confirming that preservation solvent did not alter the nitrogen stable isotopes of preserved samples, we used museum specimens and modern samples to analyze nitrogen stable isotopes in tissues of two common demersal fishes pre-1950 (1850 to 1950) compared to 2021 to assess changes in trophic positions of coastal New England consumers over this time period. Both the mesopredator Centropristis striata (black sea bass) and the benthivore Stenotomus chrysops (scup) experienced significant declines in trophic position during this time. C. striata declined almost a full trophic level, S. chrysops declined half a trophic level, and these species are now occupying almost the same trophic position. Heavy fishing activities potentially shorten food chains, simplify trophic complexity, lessen the separation of trophic niches, and generally flatten food webs. The consequences of these within-species shifts are poorly investigated but could generate underappreciated cascading impacts on community structure and function. Archived natural-history collections are an invaluable resource for investigating ecological changes in natural communities through time. The evaluation of changing trophic positions via stable isotope analysis may allow fisheries managers to quantify large-scale effects of fishing on ecosystems and food webs over time.

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Data availability

All stable isotope data are stored in the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute SIDora archive and is available upon public request.

Code availability

The RStudio code used during the current study is available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers and the handling editor whose constructive comments improved our manuscript. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Smithsonian Institution Peter Buck Fellowship, the Anna and Harry Teasley Gift Fund to the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute Federal and Trust Funds.

Funding

This study was funded by the Smithsonian Institution Peter Buck Fellowship to MSW, the Anna and Harry Teasley Gift Fund to the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute Federal and Trust Funds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences and Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection, Georgia Institute of Technology, 311 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0230, USA

    Madison S. Willert & Mark E. Hay

  2. Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 20560, USA

    Madison S. Willert & Carole C. Baldwin

  3. Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute, 4210 Silver Hill Rd., Suitland, MD, 20746, USA

    Christine A. M. France

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  1. Madison S. Willert
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  2. Christine A. M. France
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Contributions

MSW conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. MSW and CAMF collected the data. CAMF, CCB, and MEH provided crucial research and editorial advice throughout the process.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark E. Hay.

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Conflict of interest

The named authors have no conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.

Ethical approval

Ethics approval was waived by the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Office of Research Integrity Assurance, because all animals were independently caught by fishermen and already deceased prior to sampling.

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All authors consent to publication of this study.

Additional information

Communicated by Joel Trexler.

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Willert, M.S., France, C.A.M., Baldwin, C.C. et al. Historic trophic decline in New England’s coastal marine ecosystem. Oecologia 202, 455–463 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-023-05410-0

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