Life Below Water (LBW) is in decline partly due to overfishing and partly because climate change is disrupting the biophysics of the ocean. Fish is a central part of LBW where predator-prey relationships keep the ocean alive. An ocean full of life is an important source of food and livelihoods for humans worldwide. LBW is now facing two ominous threats, overfishing and climate change. In this Research Topic, we address how the reduction of overfishing can increase the ability of LBW to withstand the impacts of climate change. Thus, we encourage the submission of contributions that relate the fishing down marine food webs phenomenon (i.e., the truncation of marine food webs by the extraction of high trophic level species), the destruction of marine habitats (e.g., through harmful fishing gears), and the continued unsustainable extraction of these resources with climate-related impacts on marine environments, species populations and ecosystems. We particularly encourage papers that discuss mitigation of climate change and the positive effect that this will have to make LBW resilient. We would like to encourage an active discussion of future actions and policies to support this mitigation, and provide the elements that might help in building a multidimensional and interactive framework to build LBW resilience.
Life Below Water (LBW) is in decline partly due to overfishing and partly because climate change is disrupting the biophysics of the ocean. Fish is a central part of LBW where predator-prey relationships keep the ocean alive. An ocean full of life is an important source of food and livelihoods for humans worldwide. LBW is now facing two ominous threats, overfishing and climate change. In this Research Topic, we address how the reduction of overfishing can increase the ability of LBW to withstand the impacts of climate change. Thus, we encourage the submission of contributions that relate the fishing down marine food webs phenomenon (i.e., the truncation of marine food webs by the extraction of high trophic level species), the destruction of marine habitats (e.g., through harmful fishing gears), and the continued unsustainable extraction of these resources with climate-related impacts on marine environments, species populations and ecosystems. We particularly encourage papers that discuss mitigation of climate change and the positive effect that this will have to make LBW resilient. We would like to encourage an active discussion of future actions and policies to support this mitigation, and provide the elements that might help in building a multidimensional and interactive framework to build LBW resilience.
