Bérengère Husson

Institute of Marine Research in Norway | IMR · Research Group of Ecosystem Processes

The warming trend of the Arctic is punctuated by several record‐breaking warm years with very low sea‐ice concentrations. The nature and reversibility of marine ecosystem responses to these multiple extreme climatic events (ECEs) are poorly understood. Here, we investigate the ecological signatures of three successive bottom temperature maxima conc...

The Working Group on the Integrated Assessments of the Barents Sea (WGIBAR) was chaired by Elena Eriksen (Norway) and Anatoly Filin (Russia), and meeting was conducted online. The main objectives of the WGIBAR are to perform an integrated assessment of the Barents Sea ecosystem taking into account climate change and anthropogenic impacts, and to pr...

The Nansen Legacy workshop on best practices for ecological model evaluation, chaired by Benjamin Planque (IMR) was held in Tromsø on the 6-7th November 2018. The objective of the workshop was to develop recommendations for best practice in evaluation of the performance of food-web simulation models (deliverable 4-4.1.1 of the Nansen Legacy project...

After having been closed for shrimp trawling since the early 1970s, a reopening of the Porsanger and Tana Fjords is currently considered. The Institute of Marine Research (IMR) was tasked by the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries to assess the ecosystem in the two untrawled fjords. Kvænangen was selected as a reference fjord with an active shrimp t...

Many marine species exhibit poleward migrations following climate change. The Barents Sea, a doorstep to the fast‐warming Arctic, is experiencing large scale changes in its environment and its communities. Tracking and anticipating changes for management and conservation purposes at the scale of the ecosystem necessitate quantitative knowledge on i...

Climate change is rapidly modifying biodiversity across the Arctic, driving a shift from Arctic to more boreal ecosystem characteristics. This phenomenon, known as borealization, is mainly described for certain functional groups along sub-Arctic inflow shelves (Barents and Chukchi Seas). In this review, we evaluate the spatial extent of such altera...

Coastal and adjacent shelf waters are generally highly productive ecosystems harboring important ecological processes and exposed to a range of anthropogenic pressures from land-based and marine sectors. Ensuring that the cumulative pressures from human activities do not cause unacceptable, permanent harm to the ecosystem is challenging but crucial...

As the urgency to evaluate the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems increases, there is a need to develop robust projections and improve the uptake of ecosystem model outputs in policy and planning. Standardising input and output data is a crucial step in evaluating and communicating results, but can be challenging when using models with...

Across marine ecosystems, species are redistributing as a response to increased sea temperatures. In the Arctic, rapid warming causes poleward shifts of boreal species. Which species are redistributing and the drivers of their movements can be related to their life history traits. Here, we aimed to characterize and analyze the spatio-temporal chang...

The aim of the joint Norwegian/Russian ecosystem survey in the Barents Sea and adjacent waters, August-October (BESS) is to monitor the status and changes in the Barents Sea ecosystem and provide data to support stock advice and research. The survey has since 2004 been conducted annually in the autumn, as a collaboration between the Institute of Ma...

The spatial complexity of coastal ecosystems represents a challenge for the management of inshore resources. Here we compared two large fjord systems in northern Norway that have been closed for all bottom trawling for 50 years to a fjord with continuous shrimp fishery with bottom trawls. No significant differences were found between fjords with an...

We built a dynamic, spatial food web model for the Barents Sea, developed with Ecospace by including species’ habitat requirements and ecological interactions. The model was used to test the spatial shifts of different functional groups due to warming. We compared model-predicted and field-surveyed biomass of functional groups (FGs) spatial distrib...

The Nansen Legacy Polar Cod Connectivity cruise aimed at unravelling polar cod and capelin population connectivity and relation to the physical and chemical environment in Svalbard’s fjords. The main focus areas were Isfjorden, Kongsfjorden, Storfjorden and the South-East of Svalbard. A total of 36 stations were visited to collect of information on...

The report is a first version of ODEMM assessments of 19 suggested valuable and vulnerable areas in Norwegian marine areas. The assessments consider 15 sectors and the respective stressors on the ecosystem components that are the basis for the valuable and vulnerable areas. In Norwegian.

Numerical models of ecological systems are increasingly used to address complex environmental and resource management questions. One challenge for scientists, managers, and stakeholders is to appraise how well suited these models are to answer questions of scientific or societal relevance, that is, to perform, communicate, or access transparent eva...

The main objective of the Working Group on the Integrated Assessments of the Barents Sea (WGIBAR) is to perform an integrated assessment of the Barents Sea ecosystem taking into account climate change and anthropogenic impacts, and to provide ecosystem information to ICES working groups and various users (managers, stakeholders and others). To achi...

While ecosystem-based fisheries management calls for explicit accounting for interactions between exploited populations and their environment, moving from single species to ecosystem-level assessment is a significant challenge. For many ecologically significant groups, data may be lacking, collected at inappropriate scales or be highly uncertain. I...

Aim Assess the spatial and temporal turnover of bentho‐demersal marine fauna by integrating ecological metrics at the community and food web levels and evaluate their main environmental and anthropogenic drivers. Location Barents Sea. Method We analysed data of benthic and bentho‐pelagic fish and megabenthic invertebrates caught in the Barents Se...

The second Nansen Legacy workshop on best practices for ecological model evaluation, chaired by Benjamin Planque (IMR) was held at the University of Oslo on the 23-25th September 2019. The objective of the workshop was to develop a protocol for describing the evaluation of ecological models.

Species are redistributing globally in response to climate warming, impacting ecosystem functions and services. In the Barents Sea, poleward expansion of boreal species and a decreased abundance of Arctic species are causing a rapid borealisation of the Arctic communities. This borealisation might have profound consequences on the Arctic food web b...

In the 40 years since the discovery of the rich faunal community around hydrothermal vents, many studies have clearly shown that environmental conditions have a strong influence on species distribution in these habitats. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that determine the spatial and temporal dynamics of species’ responses to vent conditions remain elu...

The assessment and comparison of food webs across various hydrothermal vent sites can enhance our understanding of ecological processes involved in the structure and function of biodiversity. The Menez Gwen, Lucky Strike and Rainbow vent fields are located on the Azores triple junction of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. These fields have distinct depths (f...

En bientôt quarante ans de recherche, de nombreuses connaissances ont été acquises sur la géologie des champs hydrothermaux, la chimie des fluides qui en réchappent et l’écologie des communautés qui les habitent. Celles-ci s’organisent en assemblages denses, distribués le long de la zone de dilution du fluide hydrothermal dans l’eau de mer, et domi...

We studied bivalves (vesicomyids and mytilids) inhabiting four different areas of high sulfide and methane production: 1) in the Gulf of Guinea, two pockmarks (650 m and 3150 m depth) and one site rich in organic sediments in the deepest zone (4950 m average depth), 2) at the Azores Triple Junction on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, one hydrothermal site (...