MAESTRO

The oceans constitute a vital component of our planet, contributing to over 60% of monetized ecosystem services. Among these services, humankind critically relies on marine resources, such as fish and benthic invertebrates, for sustenance and economic stability. Nevertheless, the persistent pressures of fishing activities and the effects of climate change are profoundly altering the global distribution and abundance of marine species. This situation emphasizes the urgent need for us to enhance our understanding of ocean ecosystem services, predict the future of marine resources more accurately, and formulate adaptive strategies to mitigate these challenges.

While various studies have generated projections of future species distributions in response to these environmental shifts, the expected alterations of trait structure within communities (i.e. the functional characteristics of species) have received far less attention. More precisely, we lack integrated models and scenarios to better predict and anticipate the mixed impacts of climate change and fishing pressure on the types of diversity in marine communities that ultimately determine their functioning. To safeguard the future of marine resources and ensure the continued provision of ecosystem services, it is imperative that we prioritize research and modeling efforts aimed at comprehensively understanding the changing trait structures in marine community.

By taking advantage of available data on long-term fish and invertebrate surveys, species traits, fisheries and the environment, the main goals of the MAESTRO project are thus

• to characterize and assess the effects of climate and fishing on the functional diversity of exploited communities during the last three decades in the Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea,
• to forecast how exploited communities will respond to the upcoming warming until the end of this century, and
• to investigate, for several climate change scenarios, alternative harvesting strategies targeting different species and trait groups in order to minimize the impacts of fishing on functional diversity.