Improved joint line and posterior offset restoration in primary total knee replacement using a robotic-assisted surgical technique: An international multi-centre retrospective analysis of matched cohorts.

BACKGROUND: Accurate restoration of joint line height and posterior offset in primary Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) have been shown to be important factors in post-operative range of movement and function. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of joint line and posterior offset restoration in a group of patients that underwent robotic-assisted TKA (raTKA). A matched cohort of patients that underwent a TKA using a conventional jig-based technique was assessed for comparison. The null hypothesis was that there would be no difference between groups. METHODS: This study was a retrospective analysis of a cohort of 120 patients with end-stage knee osteoarthritis that received a TKA using the Navio Surgical System (n = 60), or Conventional manual TKA (n = 60). Procedures were performed between 1 January 2019 and 1 October 2019 at six different centres. Joint line height and posterior offset was measured pre-operatively and post-operatively on calibrated weight bearing plain radiographs of the knee. Two observers performed measurements using validated measuring tools. A BMI and age-matched cohort of patients that underwent TKA using a conventional technique in the same six centres were assessed for comparison. Mean values, standard deviations and confidence intervals are presented for change and absolute change in joint line height and posterior offset. Student's t-test was used to compare the changes between techniques. RESULTS: Patients that underwent robotic-assisted TKA had joint line height and posterior offset restored more accurately than patients undergoing TKA using a conventional technique. Average change from pre-operative measurement in joint line height using raTKA was -0.38mm [95% CI: -0.79 to 0.03] vs 0.91 [0.14 to 1.68] with the conventional technique. Average absolute change in joint line height using raTKA was 1.96mm [1.74 to 2.18] vs 4.00mm [3.68 to 4.32] with the conventional technique. Average change in posterior offset using raTKA was 0.08mm [-0.40 to 0.56] vs 1.64mm [2.47 to 0.81] with the conventional technique. Average absolute change in posterior offset with raTKA was 2.19mm [1.92 to 2.46] vs 4.24mm [3.79 to 4.69] with the conventional technique. There was a significant difference when comparing absolute change in joint line height and posterior offset between groups (p<0.01). CONCLUSION: Robotic-assisted primary TKA restores the joint line height and posterior offset more accurately than conventional jig-based techniques.

Trawl impacts on the relative status of biotic communities of seabed sedimentary habitats in 24 regions worldwide.

Bottom trawling is widespread globally and impacts seabed habitats. However, risks from trawling remain unquantified at large scales in most regions. We address these issues by synthesizing evidence on the impacts of different trawl-gear types, seabed recovery rates, and spatial distributions of trawling intensity in a quantitative indicator of biotic status (relative amount of pretrawling biota) for sedimentary habitats, where most bottom-trawling occurs, in 24 regions worldwide. Regional average status relative to an untrawled state (=1) was high (>0.9) in 15 regions, but <0.7 in three (European) regions and only 0.25 in the Adriatic Sea. Across all regions, 66% of seabed area was not trawled (status = 1), 1.5% was depleted (status = 0), and 93% had status > 0.8. These assessments are first order, based on parameters estimated with uncertainty from meta-analyses; we recommend regional analyses to refine parameters for local specificity. Nevertheless, our results are sufficiently robust to highlight regions needing more effective management to reduce exploitation and improve stock sustainability and seabed environmental status-while also showing seabed status was high (>0.95) in regions where catches of trawled fish stocks meet accepted benchmarks for sustainable exploitation, demonstrating that environmental benefits accrue from effective fisheries management. Furthermore, regional seabed status was related to the proportional area swept by trawling, enabling preliminary predictions of regional status when only the total amount of trawling is known. This research advances seascape-scale understanding of trawl impacts in regions around the world, enables quantitative assessment of sustainability risks, and facilitates implementation of an ecosystem approach to trawl fisheries management globally.

Imageless robotic-assisted revision arthroplasty from UKA to TKA : Surgical technique and case-control study compared with primary robotic TKA.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: It is evident from the national joint registries that numbers of revision knee arthroplasty operations are rising. The aim of this article is to introduce a new robotic-assisted approach in UKA to TKA revision arthroplasty and investigate the alignment accuracy, implant component use and surgery time and to compare it to primary robotic-assisted TKA arthroplasty. METHODS: This retrospective, case-control study included patients undergoing image-less robotic-assisted revision arthroplasty from UKA to TKA (n = 20) and patients undergoing image-less robotic-assisted primary TKA (control group, n = 20) from 11/2018 to 07/2020. The control group was matched based on the BMI and natural alignment. Comparison of groups was based on postoperative alignment, outlier rate, tibial insert size, lateral bone resection depth, incision-to-wound closure time. All surgeries were performed by a single senior surgeon using the same bi-cruciate stabilizing TKA system. Statistical analysis consisted of parametric t­testing and Fisher's exact test with a level of significance of p < 0.05. RESULTS: The two groups showed no differences in mean BMI, natural alignment (p > 0.05) and mean overall limb alignment. No outlier was found for OLA and slope analysis. The smallest insert size (9 mm) was used in 70% of the cases in the revision group (n = 14) and in 90% of the cases in the primary group (n = 18, p = 0.24), distal femoral and tibial resection depth showed no statistical difference (p > 0.05). The incision to wound closure time was longer in the revision group but showed no significant difference. CONCLUSION: Image-less robotic-assisted revision arthroplasty from UKA to TKA showed a comparable surgery time, and alignment accuracy in comparison to primary robotic-assisted TKA. Comparable bone preservation and subsequent tibial insert size use was observed for both groups.

Early Economic Evaluation Demonstrates That Noncomputerized Tomography Robotic-Assisted Surgery Is Cost-Effective in Patients Undergoing Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty at High-Volume Orthopaedic Centres.

BACKGROUND: For over fifty years, unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) has been used to treat single-compartment osteoarthritis of the knee and is considered a safe alternative to total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The development and use of robotic-assisted surgery (r-UKA) have made the execution of the procedure more precise, and various studies have reported improved radiographic outcomes and implant survival rates; however, its cost-effectiveness is unknown. This study aimed at assessing the cost-effectiveness of noncomputerized tomography (non-CT) r-UKA compared to the traditional unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (t-UKA) method in patients with unicompartmental knee osteoarthritis from the UK payer's perspective. METHODS: We developed a 5-year four-state Markov model to evaluate the expected costs and outcomes of the two strategies in patients aged 65 years. Failure rates for t-UKA were taken from the British National Joint Registry while data for non-CT r-UKA were obtained from a 2-year observational study. Cost was obtained from the NHS reference cost valued at 2018/19 GBP£, and a discount rate of 3.5% was applied to both costs and benefits. RESULTS: For a high-volume orthopaedic centre that performs 100 UKA operations per year, non-CT r-UKA was more costly than t-UKA but offered better clinical outcomes, and the estimated cost per QALY was £2,831. The results were more favourable in younger patients aged less than 55 and sensitive to case volumes and follow-up period. CONCLUSION: Non-CT r-UKA is cost-effective compared with t-UKA over a 5-year period. Results are dependent on case volumes and follow-up period and favour younger age groups.

Global ensemble projections reveal trophic amplification of ocean biomass declines with climate change.

While the physical dimensions of climate change are now routinely assessed through multimodel intercomparisons, projected impacts on the global ocean ecosystem generally rely on individual models with a specific set of assumptions. To address these single-model limitations, we present standardized ensemble projections from six global marine ecosystem models forced with two Earth system models and four emission scenarios with and without fishing. We derive average biomass trends and associated uncertainties across the marine food web. Without fishing, mean global animal biomass decreased by 5% (±4% SD) under low emissions and 17% (±11% SD) under high emissions by 2100, with an average 5% decline for every 1 °C of warming. Projected biomass declines were primarily driven by increasing temperature and decreasing primary production, and were more pronounced at higher trophic levels, a process known as trophic amplification. Fishing did not substantially alter the effects of climate change. Considerable regional variation featured strong biomass increases at high latitudes and decreases at middle to low latitudes, with good model agreement on the direction of change but variable magnitude. Uncertainties due to variations in marine ecosystem and Earth system models were similar. Ensemble projections performed well compared with empirical data, emphasizing the benefits of multimodel inference to project future outcomes. Our results indicate that global ocean animal biomass consistently declines with climate change, and that these impacts are amplified at higher trophic levels. Next steps for model development include dynamic scenarios of fishing, cumulative human impacts, and the effects of management measures on future ocean biomass trends.

Thermal stress induces persistently altered coral reef fish assemblages.

Ecological communities are reorganizing in response to warming temperatures. For continuous ocean habitats this reorganization is characterized by large-scale species redistribution, but for tropical discontinuous habitats such as coral reefs, spatial isolation coupled with strong habitat dependence of fish species imply that turnover and local extinctions are more significant mechanisms. In these systems, transient marine heatwaves are causing coral bleaching and profoundly altering habitat structure, yet despite severe bleaching events becoming more frequent and projections indicating annual severe bleaching by the 2050s at most reefs, long-term effects on the diversity and structure of fish assemblages remain unclear. Using a 23-year time series spanning a thermal stress event, we describe and model structural changes and recovery trajectories of fish communities after mass bleaching. Communities changed fundamentally, with the new emergent communities dominated by herbivores and persisting for >15 years, a period exceeding realized and projected intervals between thermal stress events on coral reefs. Reefs which shifted to macroalgal states had the lowest species richness and highest compositional dissimilarity, whereas reefs where live coral recovered exceeded prebleaching fish richness, but remained dissimilar to prebleaching compositions. Given realized and projected frequencies of bleaching events, our results show that fish communities historically associated with coral reefs will not re-establish, requiring substantial adaptation by managers and resource users.

Energetically relevant predator-prey body mass ratios and their relationship with predator body size.

Food web structure and dynamics depend on relationships between body sizes of predators and their prey. Species-based and community-wide estimates of preferred and realized predator-prey mass ratios (PPMR) are required inputs to size-based size spectrum models of marine communities, food webs, and ecosystems. Here, we clarify differences between PPMR definitions in different size spectrum models, in particular differences between PPMR measurements weighting prey abundance in individual predators by biomass (r bio) and numbers (r num). We argue that the former weighting generates PPMR as usually conceptualized in equilibrium (static) size spectrum models while the latter usually applies to dynamic models. We use diet information from 170,689 individuals of 34 species of fish in Alaskan marine ecosystems to calculate both PPMR metrics. Using hierarchical models, we examine how explained variance in these metrics changed with predator body size, predator taxonomic resolution, and spatial resolution. In the hierarchical analysis, variance in both metrics emerged primarily at the species level and substantially less variance was associated with other (higher) taxonomic levels or with spatial resolution. This suggests that changes in species composition are the main drivers of community-wide mean PPMR. At all levels of analysis, relationships between weighted mean r bio or weighted mean r num and predator mass tended to be dome-shaped. Weighted mean r num values, for species and community-wide, were approximately an order of magnitude higher than weighted mean r bio, reflecting the consistent numeric dominance of small prey in predator diets. As well as increasing understanding of the drivers of variation in PPMR and providing estimates of PPMR in the north Pacific Ocean, our results demonstrate that that r bio or r num, as well as their corresponding weighted means for any defined group of predators, are not directly substitutable. When developing equilibrium size-based models based on bulk energy flux or comparing PPMR estimates derived from the relationship between body mass and trophic level with those based on diet analysis, weighted mean r bio is a more appropriate measure of PPMR. When calibrating preference PPMR in dynamic size spectrum models then weighted mean r num will be a more appropriate measure of PPMR.

Twenty-first-century climate change impacts on marine animal biomass and ecosystem structure across ocean basins.

Climate change effects on marine ecosystems include impacts on primary production, ocean temperature, species distributions, and abundance at local to global scales. These changes will significantly alter marine ecosystem structure and function with associated socio-economic impacts on ecosystem services, marine fisheries, and fishery-dependent societies. Yet how these changes may play out among ocean basins over the 21st century remains unclear, with most projections coming from single ecosystem models that do not adequately capture the range of model uncertainty. We address this by using six marine ecosystem models within the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (Fish-MIP) to analyze responses of marine animal biomass in all major ocean basins to contrasting climate change scenarios. Under a high emissions scenario (RCP8.5), total marine animal biomass declined by an ensemble mean of 15%-30% (±12%-17%) in the North and South Atlantic and Pacific, and the Indian Ocean by 2100, whereas polar ocean basins experienced a 20%-80% (±35%-200%) increase. Uncertainty and model disagreement were greatest in the Arctic and smallest in the South Pacific Ocean. Projected changes were reduced under a low (RCP2.6) emissions scenario. Under RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, biomass projections were highly correlated with changes in net primary production and negatively correlated with projected sea surface temperature increases across all ocean basins except the polar oceans. Ecosystem structure was projected to shift as animal biomass concentrated in different size-classes across ocean basins and emissions scenarios. We highlight that climate change mitigation measures could moderate the impacts on marine animal biomass by reducing biomass declines in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean basins. The range of individual model projections emphasizes the importance of using an ensemble approach in assessing uncertainty of future change.

Publisher Correction: Productive instability of coral reef fisheries after climate-driven regime shifts.

In the version of this Article originally published, a technical error meant two proof corrections were not actioned. In the sentence that started "Fishery changes were underpinned…", a citation to ref. 9 was missing, and that to ref. 22 was misplaced. The sentence should have read: "Fishery changes were underpinned by species' differential responses to the post-bleaching benthic trajectories, suggesting that projections for reef fisheries that are based on habitat-driven loss of fish biomass (for example ref. 9) have overlooked the potential for increased productivity of low trophic levels22, particularly browsing herbivores on regime-shifted reefs." These errors have now been corrected in the Article.

Productive instability of coral reef fisheries after climate-driven regime shifts.

Tropical coastal communities are highly reliant on coral reefs, which provide nutrition and employment for millions of people. Climate-driven coral bleaching events are fundamentally changing coral reef ecosystems and are predicted to reduce productivity of coral reef fish and fisheries, with significant implications for food security and livelihoods. Yet evidence of long-term bleaching impacts on coral reef fishery productivity is lacking. Here, we analyse over 20 years of fish abundance, catch and habitat data to assess long-term impacts of climate-driven coral mass mortality and regime shifts on nearshore artisanal coral reef fisheries in the Seychelles. Contrary to expectations, total catch and mean catch rates were maintained or increased after coral bleaching, consistent with increasing abundance of herbivorous target species in underwater surveys, particularly on macroalgal-dominated reefs. Catch instability increased as habitats followed divergent post-disturbance trajectories and the distribution of target species became more spatially variable, potentially impacting fisher incomes and local market supply chains. Although coral bleaching increased fishery dependence on herbivore species, our results show that climate-impacted reefs can still provide livelihoods and fish protein for coastal communities.

Estimating contributions of pelagic and benthic pathways to consumer production in coupled marine food webs.

Pelagic and benthic systems usually interact, but their dynamics and production rates differ. Such differences influence the distribution, reproductive cycles, growth rates, stability and productivity of the consumers they support. Consumer preferences for, and dependence on, pelagic or benthic production are governed by the availability of these sources of production and consumer life history, distribution, habitat, behavioural ecology, ontogenetic stage and morphology. Diet studies may demonstrate the extent to which consumers feed on prey in pelagic or benthic environments. But they do not discriminate benthic production directly supported by phytoplankton from benthic production recycled through detrital pathways. The former will track the dynamics of phytoplankton production more closely than the latter. We develop and apply a new analytical method that uses carbon (C) and sulphur (S) natural abundance stable isotope data to assess the relative contribution of pelagic and benthic pathways to fish consumer production. For 13 species of fish that dominate community biomass in the northern North Sea (estimated >90% of total biomass), relative modal use of pelagic pathways ranged from <25% to >85%. Use of both C and S isotopes as opposed to just C reduced uncertainty in relative modal use estimates. Temporal comparisons of relative modal use of pelagic and benthic pathways revealed similar ranking of species dependency over 4 years, but annual variation in relative modal use within species was typically 10%-40%. For the total fish consumer biomass in the study region, the C and S method linked approximately 70% and 30% of biomass to pelagic and benthic pathways, respectively. As well as providing a new method to define consumers' links to pelagic and benthic pathways, our results demonstrate that a substantial proportion of fish biomass, and by inference production, in the northern North Sea is supported by production that has passed through transformations on the seabed.

Seabirds enhance coral reef productivity and functioning in the absence of invasive rats.

Biotic connectivity between ecosystems can provide major transport of organic matter and nutrients, influencing ecosystem structure and productivity1, yet the implications are poorly understood owing to human disruptions of natural flows2. When abundant, seabirds feeding in the open ocean transport large quantities of nutrients onto islands, enhancing the productivity of island fauna and flora3,4. Whether leaching of these nutrients back into the sea influences the productivity, structure and functioning of adjacent coral reef ecosystems is not known. Here we address this question using a rare natural experiment in the Chagos Archipelago, in which some islands are rat-infested and others are rat-free. We found that seabird densities and nitrogen deposition rates are 760 and 251 times higher, respectively, on islands where humans have not introduced rats. Consequently, rat-free islands had substantially higher nitrogen stable isotope (δ15N) values in soils and shrubs, reflecting pelagic nutrient sources. These higher values of δ15N were also apparent in macroalgae, filter-feeding sponges, turf algae and fish on adjacent coral reefs. Herbivorous damselfish on reefs adjacent to the rat-free islands grew faster, and fish communities had higher biomass across trophic feeding groups, with 48% greater overall biomass. Rates of two critical ecosystem functions, grazing and bioerosion, were 3.2 and 3.8 times higher, respectively, adjacent to rat-free islands. Collectively, these results reveal how rat introductions disrupt nutrient flows among pelagic, island and coral reef ecosystems. Thus, rat eradication on oceanic islands should be a high conservation priority as it is likely to benefit terrestrial ecosystems and enhance coral reef productivity and functioning by restoring seabird-derived nutrient subsidies from large areas of ocean.

Linked sustainability challenges and trade-offs among fisheries, aquaculture and agriculture.

Fisheries and aquaculture make a crucial contribution to global food security, nutrition and livelihoods. However, the UN Sustainable Development Goals separate marine and terrestrial food production sectors and ecosystems. To sustainably meet increasing global demands for fish, the interlinkages among goals within and across fisheries, aquaculture and agriculture sectors must be recognized and addressed along with their changing nature. Here, we assess and highlight development challenges for fisheries-dependent countries based on analyses of interactions and trade-offs between goals focusing on food, biodiversity and climate change. We demonstrate that some countries are likely to face double jeopardies in both fisheries and agriculture sectors under climate change. The strategies to mitigate these risks will be context-dependent, and will need to directly address the trade-offs among Sustainable Development Goals, such as halting biodiversity loss and reducing poverty. Countries with low adaptive capacity but increasing demand for food require greater support and capacity building to transition towards reconciling trade-offs. Necessary actions are context-dependent and include effective governance, improved management and conservation, maximizing societal and environmental benefits from trade, increased equitability of distribution and innovation in food production, including continued development of low input and low impact aquaculture.

Metabolic compensation constrains the temperature dependence of gross primary production.

Gross primary production (GPP) is the largest flux in the carbon cycle, yet its response to global warming is highly uncertain. The temperature dependence of GPP is directly linked to photosynthetic physiology, but the response of GPP to warming over longer timescales could also be shaped by ecological and evolutionary processes that drive variation in community structure and functional trait distributions. Here, we show that selection on photosynthetic traits within and across taxa dampens the effects of temperature on GPP across a catchment of geothermally heated streams. Autotrophs from cold streams had higher photosynthetic rates and after accounting for differences in biomass among sites, biomass-specific GPP was independent of temperature in spite of a 20 °C thermal gradient. Our results suggest that temperature compensation of photosynthetic rates constrains the long-term temperature dependence of GPP, and highlights the importance of considering physiological, ecological and evolutionary mechanisms when predicting how ecosystem-level processes respond to warming.

Global analysis of depletion and recovery of seabed biota after bottom trawling disturbance.

Bottom trawling is the most widespread human activity affecting seabed habitats. Here, we collate all available data for experimental and comparative studies of trawling impacts on whole communities of seabed macroinvertebrates on sedimentary habitats and develop widely applicable methods to estimate depletion and recovery rates of biota after trawling. Depletion of biota and trawl penetration into the seabed are highly correlated. Otter trawls caused the least depletion, removing 6% of biota per pass and penetrating the seabed on average down to 2.4 cm, whereas hydraulic dredges caused the most depletion, removing 41% of biota and penetrating the seabed on average 16.1 cm. Median recovery times posttrawling (from 50 to 95% of unimpacted biomass) ranged between 1.9 and 6.4 y. By accounting for the effects of penetration depth, environmental variation, and uncertainty, the models explained much of the variability of depletion and recovery estimates from single studies. Coupled with large-scale, high-resolution maps of trawling frequency and habitat, our estimates of depletion and recovery rates enable the assessment of trawling impacts on unprecedented spatial scales.

Drivers and predictions of coral reef carbonate budget trajectories.

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to the long-term maintenance of coral-dominated tropical ecosystems, and has received considerable attention over the past two decades. Coral bleaching and associated mortality events, which are predicted to become more frequent and intense, can alter the balance of different elements that are responsible for coral reef growth and maintenance. The geomorphic impacts of coral mass mortality have received relatively little attention, particularly questions concerning temporal recovery of reef carbonate production and the factors that promote resilience of reef growth potential. Here, we track the biological carbonate budgets of inner Seychelles reefs from 1994 to 2014, spanning the 1998 global bleaching event when these reefs lost more than 90% of coral cover. All 21 reefs had positive budgets in 1994, but in 2005 budgets were predominantly negative. By 2014, carbonate budgets on seven reefs were comparable with 1994, but on all reefs where an ecological regime shift to macroalgal dominance occurred, budgets remained negative through 2014. Reefs with higher massive coral cover, lower macroalgae cover and lower excavating parrotfish biomass in 1994 were more likely to have positive budgets post-bleaching. If mortality of corals from the 2016 bleaching event is as severe as that of 1998, our predictions based on past trends would suggest that six of eight reefs with positive budgets in 2014 would still have positive budgets by 2030. Our results highlight that reef accretion and framework maintenance cannot be assumed from the ecological state alone, and that managers should focus on conserving aspects of coral reefs that support resilient carbonate budgets.

Rapid evolution of metabolic traits explains thermal adaptation in phytoplankton.

Understanding the mechanisms that determine how phytoplankton adapt to warming will substantially improve the realism of models describing ecological and biogeochemical effects of climate change. Here, we quantify the evolution of elevated thermal tolerance in the phytoplankton, Chlorella vulgaris. Initially, population growth was limited at higher temperatures because respiration was more sensitive to temperature than photosynthesis meaning less carbon was available for growth. Tolerance to high temperature evolved after ≈ 100 generations via greater down-regulation of respiration relative to photosynthesis. By down-regulating respiration, phytoplankton overcame the metabolic constraint imposed by the greater temperature sensitivity of respiration and more efficiently allocated fixed carbon to growth. Rapid evolution of carbon-use efficiency provides a potentially general mechanism for thermal adaptation in phytoplankton and implies that evolutionary responses in phytoplankton will modify biogeochemical cycles and hence food web structure and function under warming. Models of climate futures that ignore adaptation would usefully be revisited.

Predicting Consumer Biomass, Size-Structure, Production, Catch Potential, Responses to Fishing and Associated Uncertainties in the World's Marine Ecosystems.

Existing estimates of fish and consumer biomass in the world's oceans are disparate. This creates uncertainty about the roles of fish and other consumers in biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem processes, the extent of human and environmental impacts and fishery potential. We develop and use a size-based macroecological model to assess the effects of parameter uncertainty on predicted consumer biomass, production and distribution. Resulting uncertainty is large (e.g. median global biomass 4.9 billion tonnes for consumers weighing 1 g to 1000 kg; 50% uncertainty intervals of 2 to 10.4 billion tonnes; 90% uncertainty intervals of 0.3 to 26.1 billion tonnes) and driven primarily by uncertainty in trophic transfer efficiency and its relationship with predator-prey body mass ratios. Even the upper uncertainty intervals for global predictions of consumer biomass demonstrate the remarkable scarcity of marine consumers, with less than one part in 30 million by volume of the global oceans comprising tissue of macroscopic animals. Thus the apparently high densities of marine life seen in surface and coastal waters and frequently visited abundance hotspots will likely give many in society a false impression of the abundance of marine animals. Unexploited baseline biomass predictions from the simple macroecological model were used to calibrate a more complex size- and trait-based model to estimate fisheries yield and impacts. Yields are highly dependent on baseline biomass and fisheries selectivity. Predicted global sustainable fisheries yield increases ≈4 fold when smaller individuals (< 20 cm from species of maximum mass < 1 kg) are targeted in all oceans, but the predicted yields would rarely be accessible in practice and this fishing strategy leads to the collapse of larger species if fishing mortality rates on different size classes cannot be decoupled. Our analyses show that models with minimal parameter demands that are based on a few established ecological principles can support equitable analysis and comparison of diverse ecosystems. The analyses provide insights into the effects of parameter uncertainty on global biomass and production estimates, which have yet to be achieved with complex models, and will therefore help to highlight priorities for future research and data collection. However, the focus on simple model structures and global processes means that non-phytoplankton primary production and several groups, structures and processes of ecological and conservation interest are not represented. Consequently, our simple models become increasingly less useful than more complex alternatives when addressing questions about food web structure and function, biodiversity, resilience and human impacts at smaller scales and for areas closer to coasts.

Implications of scaled δ15N fractionation for community predator-prey body mass ratio estimates in size-structured food webs.

Nitrogen stable isotope ratios (δ(15) N) may be used to estimate community-level relationships between trophic level (TL) and body size in size-structured food webs and hence the mean predator to prey body mass ratio (PPMR). In turn, PPMR is used to estimate mean food chain length, trophic transfer efficiency and rates of change in abundance with body mass (usually reported as slopes of size spectra) and to calibrate and validate food web models. When estimating TL, researchers had assumed that fractionation of δ(15) N (Δδ(15) N) did not change with TL. However, a recent meta-analysis indicated that this assumption was not as well supported by data as the assumption that Δδ(15) N scales negatively with the δ(15) N of prey. We collated existing fish community δ(15) N-body size data for the Northeast Atlantic and tropical Western Arabian Sea with new data from the Northeast Pacific. These data were used to estimate TL-body mass relationships and PPMR under constant and scaled Δδ(15) N assumptions, and to assess how the scaled Δδ(15) N assumption affects our understanding of the structure of these food webs. Adoption of the scaled Δδ(15) N approach markedly reduces the previously reported differences in TL at body mass among fish communities from different regions. With scaled Δδ(15) N, TL-body mass relationships became more positive and PPMR fell. Results implied that realized prey size in these size-structured fish communities are less variable than previously assumed and food chains potentially longer. The adoption of generic PPMR estimates for calibration and validation of size-based fish community models is better supported than hitherto assumed, but predicted slopes of community size spectra are more sensitive to a given change or error in realized PPMR when PPMR is small.

Human effects on ecological connectivity in aquatic ecosystems: Integrating scientific approaches to support management and mitigation.

Understanding the drivers and implications of anthropogenic disturbance of ecological connectivity is a key concern for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Here, we review human activities that affect the movements and dispersal of aquatic organisms, including damming of rivers, river regulation, habitat loss and alteration, human-assisted dispersal of organisms and climate change. Using a series of case studies, we show that the insight needed to understand the nature and implications of connectivity, and to underpin conservation and management, is best achieved via data synthesis from multiple analytical approaches. We identify four key knowledge requirements for progressing our understanding of the effects of anthropogenic impacts on ecological connectivity: autecology; population structure; movement characteristics; and environmental tolerance/phenotypic plasticity. Structuring empirical research around these four broad data requirements, and using this information to parameterise appropriate models and develop management approaches, will allow for mitigation of the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on ecological connectivity in aquatic ecosystems.