Regime Shifts – A Global Challenge for the Sustainable Use of Our Marine Resources

Abstract

Over the last decades many marine systems have under- gone drastic changes often resulting in new ecologically structured and sometimes economically less valuable states. In particular, the additive effects of anthropogenic stressors (e.g., fishing, climate change) seem to play a fundamental role in causing unexpected and sudden shifts between system states, generally termed regime shifts. Recently, many examples of regime shifts have been doc- umented worldwide and their mechanisms and conse- quences have been vigorously discussed. Understanding causes and mechanisms of regime shifts is of great impor- tance for the sustainable use of natural resources and their management, especially in marine ecosystems. Hence, we conducted a session entitled “Ecosystem dynamics in a changing world, regime shifts and resilience in marine communities” during the 8th YOUMARES conference (Kiel, 13–15th September 2017) to present regime shifts concepts and examples to a broad range of marine scien- tists (e.g., biologists and/or ecologists, physicists, clima- tologists, sociologists) and highlight their importance for the marine ecosystems worldwide. In this chapter, we first provide examples of regime shifts which have occurred over the last decades in our oceans and discuss their potential implications for the sustainable use of marine resources; then we review regime shift theory and associated concepts. Finally, we review recent advances and future challenges to integrate regime shift theory into holistic marine ecosystem-based management approaches.