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| CoastWeb, a Foodweb Model Based on Functional Groups for Coastal Areas including a Mass-Balance Model for Phosphorus pp. 73-118 |
$100.00 |
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Authors: (Lars Håkanson, Dan Lindgren, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden)
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Abstract:
It is important to develop tools to get realistic predictions of how, e.g., the loading of contaminants and future climate changes may affect the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems. The CoastWeb-model presented in this work in meant as such a tool. CoastWeb is a process-based mechanistic foodweb model for coastal areas (the ecosystem scale) and includes a mass-balance model (CoastMab) for phosphorus. The model is based on ordinary differential equations and gives monthly calculations of production and biomasses for ten functional groups (phytoplankton, benthic algae, macrophytes, bacterioplankton, herbivorous and predatory zooplankton, zoobenthos, jellyfish, prey and predatory fish). CoastMab calculates in- and outflow, sedimentation, diffusion, resuspension, up- and downward mixing, biouptake and retention of phosphorus in biota. There are algorithms for, e.g., migration of fish and plankton between the given coastal area and the sea and the influence of exposure on macrophyte cover . The paper presents case-studies on eutrophication, overfishing and toxic contamination illustrating the potential of CoastWeb as a tool for sustainable coastal management. Increased nutrient loading will cause several changes to the foodweb characteristics of the studied coastal area. Some of these could be expected without a model, but here they have been quantified using a general foodweb model. The model accounts for different compensatory effects that are difficult to quantify without a model. The case-study on overfishing indicates that increased fishing will likely affect the studied coastal system marginally because the migration of fish from the sea is large in the studied coastal area. The case-study on toxic contamination shows that a reduction of zoobenthos biomass will have clear effects of fish production and biomass in the studied coastal area. |
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