From an Antagonistic to a Synergistic Predator Prey Perspective: Bifurcations in Marine Ecosystem

From an Antagonistic to a Synergistic Predator Prey Perspective: Bifurcations in Marine Ecosystems is a groundbreaking reference that challenges the widespread perception that predators generally have a negative impact on the abundance of their prey, and it proposes a novel paradigm — Predator-prey Synergism — in which both predator and prey enhance abundance by their co-existence. Using this model, the text explains a number of issues that appear paradoxical in the case of a negative predator-prey relationship, including observed ecosystem bifurcations (regime shifts), ecosystem resilience, red tides in apparently nutrient depleted water, and the dominance of grazed phytoplankton over non-grazed species under high grazing pressure. This novel paradigm can also be used to predict the potential impact of global warming on marine ecosystems, identify how marine ecosystem may respond to gradual environmental changes, and develop possible measures to mitigate the negative impact of increasing temperature in marine ecosystems. This book approaches the long-standing question of what generates recruitment variability in marine fishes and invertebrates in an engaging and unique way that students and researchers in marine ecosystems will understand.

Introduces a new paradigm, Predator-prey Synergism, as a building block on which to construct new ecological theories. It suggests that Predator-prey Synergism is important in some terrestrial ecosystems and is in agreement with the punctuated equilibria theory of evolution (i.e., stepwise evolution).Suggests a general solution to the recruitment puzzle in marine organismsProposes a holistic hypothesis for marine spring blooming ecosystems by considering variability enhancing and variability dampening processesAsserts that fisheries will induce variability in marine ecosystems and alter the energy flow patterns in predictable ways

1. Introduction
2. Repeated incidents of abrupt and persistent recruitment failures in gadoids in relation to increasing eutrophication 1919-2001
3. Causes of variation in abundance, growth and mortality in 0-group gadoids after settlement and a theory underlying recruitment variability in Atlantic cod
4. Growth and mortality in settled Atlantic cod in relation to diet – evidence for a recruitment mechanism
5. Bifurcations in marine ecosystems: concurrent recruitment collapses in gadoid fishes and changes in the plankton community
6. Predator-prey synergism in plankton
7. Ecological implications of predator-prey synergism in marine ecosystems
8. Variability enhancing and variability dampening mechanisms in marine ecosystems