Irish Sea - Ecology

The Irish Sea is influenced by the North Atlantic climate variability and substantial fishing activity. A number of biological changes have been observed coincident with the North Atlantic climatic regime shift and heavy fishing in the Irish Sea since the 1970s. Both fish and zooplankton appear to have declined from high to low biomass following a regime shift in the North Atlantic during 1979-1983, indicated by a shift from a positive to negative phase in the North Atlantic Oscillation Index. This shift coincides with reported ecological regime shifts in other regions of the North Atlantic where changes in biological communities across several trophic levels have been observed. The trophic web of the Irish Sea has been represented in an ecosystem model (Lees and Mackinson 2006), which is subsequently being used to investigate long-term changes in the Irish Sea communities.