FishBase 2016: Anna Törnroos
Channel: Fishbase Sweden
Date: 2016-12-13

Anna Törnroos, Åbo Akademi University, Finland, gave a lecture on "FISH – MORE THAN JUST FOOD? THEIR FUNCTIONAL ROLES, DIVERSITY AND LONG-TERM TRENDS IN THE BALTIC SEA"

Abstract: When it comes to fish we usually think of their role as food for us humans and by doing so, often relate to a few economically interesting species and their stocks. There are, however, a lot more fishes in the marine ecosystem that all play somewhat different roles. Fish are diverse in terms of how they interact with and respond to their physical and chemical environment depending on the characteristics or traits they express. Some eat organisms living on the bottom, while others find food in the water column, some might reproduce fast while others only produce a few eggs that they guard. This is also true for fish in the relatively species poor Baltic Sea and means that fish play many different roles in the food web and in the environment in which they live. The talk aims to shed light on how we can make use of this biological knowledge to get a deeper understanding of the functional roles and diversity patterns of fish (and other marine organisms) in the Baltic Sea. It also provides examples of where in the Baltic Sea we can find certain functional characteristics and why. For management and conservation purposes it is also important to know the trends over time of certain functional types and diversity measures in order to project any future changes, and thus I will present some recent results from Baltic Sea coastal fish communities.