The global susceptibility of coastal forage fish to competition by large jellyfish

Abstract

Competition between large jellyfish and forage fish for zooplankton prey is both a possible cause of jellyfish increases and a concern for the management of marine ecosystems and fisheries. Identifying principal factors affecting this competition is therefore important for marine management, but the lack of both good quality data and a robust theoretical framework have prevented general global analyses. Here, we present a general mechanistic food web model that considers fundamental differences in feeding modes and predation pressure between fish and jellyfish. The model predicts forage fish dominance at low primary production, and a shift towards jellyfish with increasing productivity, turbidity and fishing. We present an index of global ecosystem susceptibility to shifts in fish-jellyfish dominance that compares well with data on jellyfish distributions and trends. The results are a step towards better understanding the processes that govern jellyfish occurrences globally and highlight the advantage of considering feeding traits in ecosystem models.