FACTS (Forage Fish Interactions) project
1 January 2010 to 31 December 2012
Grant Agreement number: 244966
Funding Scheme: Collaborative project (FP7)
Executive Summary
Removal of a forage fish has consequences for both predators and prey of forage fish. As everything
is connected, every management action has a price which goes beyond the apparent, direct effect on
the target species. The fishery on forage fish can therefore not be seen in isolation, as the immediate
gain in profit from the fishery has to be discounted by the lowered potential for production of large
piscivorous fish. Management actions on other species also influences forage fish, i.e. conservation
efforts on marine mammals or sea birds have direct consequences for the predation pressure on
forage fish.
The objective of the FACTS project has been to provide insight and quantitative advice on the
ecosystem wide consequences of management actions directly or indirectly related to forage fish.
The two overarching questions were:
1. What are the consequences of forage fish fisheries on (a) predator growth and abundance, (b)
economic output of fisheries on piscivorous species, and (c) ecosystem stability and therisk for regime
shifts?
2. What are the consequences of changes in predator populations on forage fish populations and
fisheries?
The methods have a combination of ecosystem models, of process studies aimed at feeding into the
models, of economical models, and of data-analysis of existing data sources. The project covers four
ecosystems in detail; Norwegian-Barents Sea, Baltic Sea, North Sea and Bay of Biscay.
FACTS has brought together leading European fisheries and university institutes working on creating
the tools for ecosystem based management. The active involvement of the institutes in the current
management has provided a means for the results of the project to feed into management. The
project furthermore included a network component which has ensured a wider dissemination of
methods and results within the marine scientific community.
FACTS has compiled process knowledge on climate drivers and trophodynamic interactions of forage
fish with prey, other forage fish and their predators. The tasks were designed to compile data sets
and process knowledge required to disentangle various drivers (climate and trophodynamic
relationships) impacting forage fish populations. Hence, we provided quantitative estimates of the
relationships between changes in forage fish species and their prey, their competitors, and their
predators. These were applied in the course of the project to deliver assessments of the role of these
species within European marine ecosystems.
FACTS has parameterised and utilized a suite of models to yield quantitative estimates of ecosystem
responses to perturbations from human activities and environmental change. The work was
conducted in two phases. In the first phase, a suite of models was improved by incorporating process
knowledge on climate drivers and trophodynamic interactions into model parameterizations. In the
second phase, simulations that utilize different “perturbations” were employed within these models
to estimate the role of forage fish in ecosystem stability as influenced by differences in biodiversity
among the four FACTS Case Study regions.
Adding economics to the quantitative ecosystem response models, FACTS has analysed different
public policies to find alternatives that add to the economic welfare of society. The objective has
been to quantify costs and benefits in economic terms of perturbations directly or indirectly on
forage fish populations.
Based on the field data, data analyses and ecosystem modelling, FACTS provided both systemspecific and generic advice relevant for the development of ecosystem-based management in
European waters. The FACTS project has used two routes of information flow that produced such
advice. On the one hand, advice was directly transferred based on the increased process knowledge
on trophodynamic interactions, simulations of ecosystem-level responses, and cost-benefit tradeoffs
of forage fisheries. These results have assisted in answering immanent ecosystem management
questions, including multi-species interactions’ impact on single-species yield, sensitivities of
predators to changes in forage fish, ecosystem stability and integration of economics. To supplement
this approach another route was chosen, by identifying and recommending i) tools that are available
but not yet applied, ii) short-term improvements to these tools, and iii) long-term research needs
that must be met in order to advance European ecosystem-oriented management.