Stable landings mask irreversible community reorganizations in an overexploited Mediterranean ecosystem

1. Background. Cumulative human pressures can induce non-linear discontinuous dynamics in ecosystems, known as regime shifts. Regime shifts typically imply hysteresis, a lacking or delayed system response when pressures are reverted, which can frustrate restoration efforts.

2. The goal of the study. Here we investigate whether the northern Adriatic Sea fish and macroinvertebrate community, depicted by commercial fishery landings, has undergone irreversible regime shifts over the last 40 years.

3. What was done. We use a stochastic cusp model to show that, under the interactive effect of fishing and warming, the community reorganized through discontinuous changes.

4. What was found. Part of the community has now reached a new stable state, implying that a recovery towards previous baselines might be impossible. Interestingly, total landings remained constant across decades, masking the low resilience of the community.

5. The relevance. Our study reveals the importance of carefully assessing regime shifts and resilience in marine ecosystems and advocates for their inclusion into management.