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7 pages, 5 figures, supplementary data https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2018.06.004 ; The widely used Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) food web modelling approach has been extended with a new module to measure the impact of input parameter sensitivity on its results. Ecosampler records samples – alternate mass-balanced parameter sets for a food web model – from the built-in Monte Carlo routine, and replays these samples through all of EwE modules and any loaded plug-in. Via Ecosampler, output variation due to base input parameter sensitivity can be captured, of any computational component including the temporal module Ecosim, the spatial–temporal module Ecospace, and plug-ins such as Ecological Network Analysis, Value Chain, and Ecological Indicators ; Ecosampler was realized through funding from the European Commission through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant Fellowships PCIG10-GA-2011-303534 to the BIOWEB project. This study is a contribution to the projects SafeNET (EU-DGMARE MARE/2014/41) and MERCES (European Union's Horizon research and innovation programme grant agreement No 689518). XC was supported by an IOLR scholarship under the DESSIM project ("A Decision Support System for the management of Israel's Mediterranean Exclusive Economic Zone") ; Peer Reviewed

11 pages, 7 figures, supplementary data https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144002 ; Sustainable fishing practices must ensure human wellbeing by safeguarding the integrity of marine life-supporting systems. Unfortunately, a significant challenge to fisheries management is that sustainable fishing levels can decline, often synergistically, by co-occurring with climate-driven environmental stressors. Within one of the most impacted marine areas in the world, and encompassing a number of highly targeted commercial species, the small pelagic fish community of the western Mediterranean Sea has recently shown signs of collapse. In this study, we identify a worrying coincidence where fishing hotspots for the commercially valuable European sardine Sardina pilchardus and anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus occur in marine areas mostly affected by climate change. To identify these areas, we overlayed detailed, spatially explicit measurements of fishing pressure with the finest-scale maps of cumulative climate change impacts onto these species. According to our results, doubly impacted marine areas largely occur in the north-western Mediterranean Sea, with climate and fisheries mostly affecting European sardine. Reducing local stressors (i.e., fishing pressure) in highly impacted areas may contribute to maintain these communities within a "safe operating space" (SOS), where they remain resilient to climate change. Accordingly, the redistribution and/or reduction of fishing intensity may alleviate pressure in those areas already affected by climate change. Sustainable fishing strategies may benefit, therefore, from the SOS concept and the spatial assessments provided in this study ; This study was carried out within the Spanish Research project PELWEB (CTM2017-88939-R) funded by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Catalonian Government PELCAT projects (CAT 152CAT00013, TAIS ARP059/19/00005), and the study received funding from European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS project) ; Peer reviewed

16 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, supplementary material https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32666-x ; Using a temporal-dynamic calibrated Ecosim food web model, we assess the effects of future changes on marine resources and ecosystem conditions of the Israeli Mediterranean continental shelf. This region has been intensely invaded by Indo-Pacific species. The region is exposed to extreme environmental conditions, is subjected to high rates of climate change and has experienced intense fishing pressure. We test the impacts of a new set of fishing regulations currently being implemented, a continued increase in sea temperatures following IPCC projections, and a continued increase in alien species biomass. We first investigate the impacts of the stressors separately, and then we combine them to evaluate their cumulative effects. Our results show overall potential future benefits of fishing effort reductions, and detrimental impacts of increasing sea temperature and increasing biomass of alien species. Cumulative scenarios suggest that the beneficial effects of fisheries reduction may be dampened by the impact of increasing sea temperature and alien species when acting together. These results illustrate the importance of including stressors other than fisheries, such as climate change and biological invasions, in an ecosystem-based management approach. These results support the need for reducing local and regional stressors, such as fishing and biological invasions, in order to promote resilience to sea warming ; XC was supported by an IOLR scholarship under the DESSIM project ("A Decision Support System for the management of Israel's Mediterranean Exclusive Economic Zone"). MC was partially funded by the European Commission through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant Fellowships – PCIG10-GA-2011-303534 - to the BIOWEB project. MC and JS were partially funded by the European Union's Horizon research program grant agreement No. 689518 for the MERCES project ; Peer Reviewed

18 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables, supporting information https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep44491 ; The Mediterranean Sea has been defined "under siege" because of intense pressures from multiple human activities; yet there is still insufficient information on the cumulative impact of these stressors on the ecosystem and its resources. We evaluate how the historical (1950–2011) trends of various ecosystems groups/species have been impacted by changes in primary productivity (PP) combined with fishing pressure. We investigate the whole Mediterranean Sea using a food web modelling approach. Results indicate that both changes in PP and fishing pressure played an important role in driving species dynamics. Yet, PP was the strongest driver upon the Mediterranean Sea ecosystem. This highlights the importance of bottom-up processes in controlling the biological characteristics of the region. We observe a reduction in abundance of important fish species (~34%, including commercial and non-commercial) and top predators (~41%), and increases of the organisms at the bottom of the food web (~23%). Ecological indicators, such as community biomass, trophic levels, catch and diversity indicators, reflect such changes and show overall ecosystem degradation over time. Since climate change and fishing pressure are expected to intensify in the Mediterranean Sea, this study constitutes a baseline reference for stepping forward in assessing the future management of the basin ; M.C. acknowledges support by the European Commission through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant Fellowships – PCIG10-GA-2011-303534 - to the BIOWEB project. RD, MC and JS were partially funded by the European Union's Horizon research and innovation programme grant agreement No 689518 for the MERCES project.VC acknowledges support through NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2014-05782 ; Peer Reviewed

20 pages, 15 figures, supplementary material https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.00622/full#supplementary-material ; In the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea, the European sardine (Sardina pilchardus) and the European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) are the most important small pelagic fish in terms of biomass and commercial interest. During the last years, these species have experimented changes in their abundance and biomass trends in the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea, in addition to changes in growth, reproduction and body condition. These species are particularly sensitive to environmental fluctuations with possible cascading effects as they play a key role in connecting the lower and upper trophic levels of marine food webs. It is therefore essential to understand the factors that most profoundly affect sardine and anchovy dynamics. This study used a two-step approach to understand how the environment influences the adult stages of these species in the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea. First, we explored the effects of environmental change over time using Random Forests and available datasets of species occurrence, abundance, biomass and landings. We then applied species distribution models to test the impact of the extreme pessimistic and optimistic Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) pathway scenarios, and to identify possible climate refuges: areas where these species may be able to persist under future environmental change. Findings from the temporal modeling showed mixed effects between environmental variables and for anchovy and sardine datasets. Future pathway projections highlight that both anchovy and sardine will undergo a reduction in their spatial distributions due to future climate conditions. The future climate refuges are the waters around the Rhone River (France) and the Ebro River (Spain) for both species. This study also highlights important knowledge gaps in our understanding of the dynamics of small pelagic fish in the region, which is needed to progress towards an ecosystem approach to fisheries management ; This study was carried out within the Spanish Research project PELWEB (CTM2017-88939-R) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the European Research Contract SPELMED (EASME/EMFF/2016/032) funded by the ECEASME and the Catalonian Government PELCAT projects (CAT 152CAT00013 and TAIS ARP059/19/00005) ; Peer reviewed

Managing for the Future: Understanding the Relative Roles of Climate and Fishing on Structure and Dynamics of Marine Ecosystems.-- 5 pages, 1 figure ; The UN declared the 2021–2030 as the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (Ocean Decade). The Ocean Decade's vision is to "develop scientific knowledge, build infrastructure and foster relationships for a sustainable and healthy ocean." The Ocean Decade aims to achieve six societal outcomes: (1) A clean ocean, through identifying and removing sources of pollution; (2) A healthy and resilient ocean, with mapped and protected marine ecosystems; (3) A predicted ocean, enabling society to understand current and future ocean conditions; (4) A safe ocean, protecting people from ocean hazards; (5) A sustainably harvested ocean, providing food and resources for the blue economy; and (6) A transparent ocean, giving citizens equitable access to data, information and technologies. It also aims to provide concrete scientific support to coastal management, adaptation and restoration, marine spatial planning, marine protected areas, fisheries management, sustainable expansion of the blue economy, nationally determined contributions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), national ocean policies, development of national Research and Development (R&D), capacity development, and early warning systems. The Ocean Decade offers the ocean science community a unique opportunity to change the way we support sustainable development and galvanize ocean sciences for the future (Ryabinin et al., 2019). In addition, the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030), gives the ocean science community an imperative to work toward a sustainable future for the ocean. We challenge the marine ecosystem modeling community to address how we: (i) enable ocean managers and decision-makers to use our science, (ii) communicate our science, and most importantly (iii) ensure co-design of our science to achieve sustainable development. For this, we define ecosystem models as those that span physical and human drivers of change in the full ecosystem from plankton to top predators ; Y-jS and MT-T have been partially funded by the Biodiversa and Belmont Forum project SOMBEE (BiodivScen programme, ANR contract N°ANR-18-EBI4-0003-01). MC and JS were funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 817578 (TRIATLAS project) and MC also received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 869300 (FutureMARES project). VC acknowledges support through NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901 ; Peer reviewed

Managing for the Future: Understanding the Relative Roles of Climate and Fishing on Structure and Dynamics of Marine Ecosystems.-- 23 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables, supplementary material https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.567877/full#supplementary-material.-- All data inputs to EcoOcean v2 are either freely available as online databases or available under request from data providers. Results from the 13 runs of EcoOcean v2 presented in this study are available upon request to the lead author. The source code of EcoOcean is available under request to the lead author within a collaborative framework ; Considerable effort is being deployed to predict the impacts of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the ocean's biophysical environment, biodiversity, and natural resources to better understand how marine ecosystems and provided services to humans are likely to change and explore alternative pathways and options. We present an updated version of EcoOcean (v2), a spatial-temporal ecosystem modeling complex of the global ocean that spans food-web dynamics from primary producers to top predators. Advancements include an enhanced ability to reproduce spatial-temporal ecosystem dynamics by linking species productivity, distributions, and trophic interactions to the impacts of climate change and worldwide fisheries. The updated modeling platform is used to simulate past and future scenarios of change, where we quantify the impacts of alternative configurations of the ecological model, responses to climate-change scenarios, and the additional impacts of fishing. Climate-change scenarios are obtained from two Earth-System Models (ESMs, GFDL-ESM2M, and IPSL-CMA5-LR) and two contrasting emission pathways (RCPs 2.6 and 8.5) for historical (1950–2005) and future (2006–2100) periods. Standardized ecological indicators and biomasses of selected species groups are used to compare simulations. Results show how future ecological trajectories are sensitive to alternative configurations of EcoOcean, and yield moderate differences when looking at ecological indicators and larger differences for biomasses of species groups. Ecological trajectories are also sensitive to environmental drivers from alternative ESM outputs and RCPs, and show spatial variability and more severe changes when IPSL and RCP 8.5 are used. Under a non-fishing configuration, larger organisms show decreasing trends, while smaller organisms show mixed or increasing results. Fishing intensifies the negative effects predicted by climate change, again stronger under IPSL and RCP 8.5, which results in stronger biomass declines for species already losing under climate change, or dampened positive impacts for those increasing. Several species groups that win under climate change become losers under combined impacts, while only a few (small benthopelagic fish and cephalopods) species are projected to show positive biomass changes under cumulative impacts. EcoOcean v2 can contribute to the quantification of cumulative impact assessments of multiple stressors and of plausible ocean-based solutions to prevent, mitigate and adapt to global change ; This study received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 817578 (TRIATLAS project). Additional financial support was provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research through the Inter-Sectorial Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP, Grant 01LS1201A1). HL further acknowledges funding by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada (RGPIN-2014-04491). DT acknowledges support from the Jarislowsky Foundation. VC received support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901 ; Peer reviewed

21 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, supplementary material https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.570354/full#supplementary-material.-- Data Availability Statement: The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because the dataset is available by request to the Spanish Institute of Oceanography. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to webmaster@ieo.es ; Small pelagic fish (SPF) in the western Mediterranean Sea are key elements of the marine food web and are important in terms of biomass and fisheries catches. Significant declines in biomass, landings, and changes in the age/size structure of sardine Sardina pilchardus and anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus have been observed in recent decades, particularly in the northern area of the western Mediterranean Sea. To understand the different patterns observed in SPF populations, we analyzed key life history traits [total length at age, length at maturity, gonadosomatic index (GSI), and body condition (Kn)] of sardine and anchovy collected between 2003 and 2017, from different fishing harbors distributed along a latitudinal gradient from northern to southern Spain. We used Generalized Linear Models (GLM) to estimate the length at maturity and Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) to test the relationship with environmental variables (seawater temperature, water currents, and net primary productivity). The life history traits of both species presented seasonal, interannual and latitudinal differences with a clear decline in length at age, length at first maturity, and body condition, for both species in the northern part of the study area. In the southern part, on the contrary, life history traits did not present a clear temporal trend. The environmental conditions partially explained the long-term changes in life history traits, but the selected variables differed between areas, highlighting the importance of regional oceanographic conditions to understand the dynamics of small pelagic fish. The truncated length-at-age pattern for both species with the disappearance of the larger individuals of the population could have contributed to the poor condition of small pelagic fish populations in the northern part of the western Mediterranean Sea in recent years. In the south area, recent declines in body condition for sardine and anchovy were observed and could be a possible first sign for future population declines. This study highlights the importance of understanding the trade-off between the energy invested in reproduction, maintenance and growth at seasonal and interannual level to advance our knowledge on how environmental and human pressures influence population dynamics of small pelagic fish at local and regional scales ; This study was carried out within the Spanish Research project PELWEB (CTM2017-88939-R) funded by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the European Research Contract SPELMED (SC NR 02-TENDER EASME/EMFF/2016/032XXX) funded by EC EASME. Fisheries data collection has been co-funded by the EU through the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) within the National Program of collection, management and use of data in the fisheries sector and support for scientific advice regarding the Common Fisheries Policy (Regulation, EU 2017/1004) ; With funding from the Spanish government through the 'Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence' accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S) ; Peer reviewed

The Mediterranean Sea's biodiversity and ecosystems face many threats due to anthropogenic pressures. Some of these include human population growth, coastal urbanization, accelerated human activities, and climate change. To enhance the formation of a science-based system of marine protected areas in the Mediterranean Sea, data on the spatial distribution of ecological features (abiotic variables, species, communities, habitats, and ecosystems) is required to inform conservation scientists and planners. However, the spatial data required is often lacking. In this review, we aimed to address the status of our knowledge for 3 major types of spatial information: bathymetry, classification of marine habitats, and species distributions. To exemplify the data gaps and approaches to bridge them, we examined case studies that systematically prioritize conservation in the Mediterranean Sea. We found that at present the data required for conservation planning is generally more readily available and of better quality for the European countries located in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Additionally, the Mediterranean Sea is lagging behind other marine regions where rigorous criteria for conservation planning has been applied in the past 20 yr. Therefore, we call upon scientists, governments, and international governmental and non-governmental organizations to harmonize current approaches in marine mapping and to develop a framework that is applicable throughout the Mediterranean region. Such coordination between stakeholders is urgently needed before more countries undertake further extensive habitat mapping, so that future conservation planning can use integrated spatial datasets.