Raul Primicerio

• PhD
• Professor at University of Tromso, The Arctic University of Norway

This is the first study presenting the copepod community structure of the eastern Barents Sea in a frontal area characterised by important environmental fluctuations. It employs Redundancy Analysis combined with Community Weighted Mean (CWM-RDA) and the analysis of the latter together with Community Weighted Variance (CWV) to elucidate the ecologic...

River management should secure conservation of biodiversity and sustainable use of aquatic resources. Conservation of fish populations requires time‐series data on the number of fish present and the size‐structure. The number of fish and species composition can be resolved by video‐surveillance, but detailed measurements of body size often come fro...

Warming climate impacts aquatic ectotherms by changes in individual vital rates and declines in body size, a phenomenon known as the temperature‐size rule (TSR), and indirectly through altered species interactions and environmental feedbacks. The relative importance of these effects in shaping community responses to environmental change is incomple...

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...

Warming climate impacts aquatic ectotherms both directly, by altering individual vital rates, and indirectly through environmental feedbacks and declines in body size, a phenomenon known as the temperature-size rule (TSR). However, understanding the relative importance of these effects in shaping community responses to environmental change remains...

Climate change affects ecosystems at several levels: by altering the spatial distribution of individual species, by locally rewiring interspecific interactions, and by reorganizing trophic networks at larger scales. The dynamics of marine food webs are becoming more and more sensitive to spatial processes and connections in the seascape. As a case...

Area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs) are often static and fail to reflect the dynamic realities of marine ecosystems. Marine ecosystems are characterized by their embodiment of constant change, which is further amplified by anthropogenic stressors, particularly climate change. ABMTs and MPAs are, however, pre...

Climate warming causes shorter winters and changes in ice and snow cover in subarctic lakes, highlighting the need to better understand under-ice ecosystem functioning. The plankton community in a subarctic, oligotrophic lake was studied throughout the ice-covered season, focusing on lipid dynamics and life history traits in two actively overwinter...

Rapid warming at high latitudes triggers poleward shifts of species' distributions that impact marine biodiversity. In the open sea, the documented redistributions of fish lead to a borealization of Arctic fauna. A climate‐driven borealization and increased species diversity at high latitudes are also expected in coastal fish communities, but they...

Introduction Increasing temperature of the global ocean alters the spatial behavior of a number of species. From the northern Atlantic Ocean, species may shift their area towards the poles. This results in the atlantification of the Barents Sea, raising questions about possible changes in species composition, community structure and community contr...

The reduction of Arctic summer sea ice due to climate change can lead to increased primary production in parts of the Barents Sea if sufficient nutrients are available. Changes in the timing and magnitude of primary production may have cascading consequences for the zooplankton community and ultimately for higher trophic levels. In Arctic food webs...

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...

Monitoring programs that integrate both structural and functional ecosystem components play integral roles in ecosystem management and conservation planning. In the early 1990’s, the marine ecosystem of the waters surrounding Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) underwent a regime shift. Several demersal and pelagic fish stocks collapsed simultaneously,...

We compared three sets of highly resolved food webs with and without parasites for a subarctic lake system corresponding to its pelagic and benthic compartments and the whole-lake food web. Key topological food-web metrics were calculated for each set of compartments to explore the role parasites play in food-web topology in these highly contrastin...

Introduction The Arctic sea ice extent in September (when it is at its lowest) has declined 13% Q10 per decade, and the Arctic Ocean is becoming a more Atlantic-influenced system. Rapid climate-forced changes are taking place in many high-latitude marine ecosystems. The Barents Sea is one such high-latitude shelf ecosystem, between approximately 70...

The Barents Sea is one of the Polar regions where current climate and ecosystem change is most pronounced. Here we review the current state of knowledge of the physical, chemical and biological systems in the Barents Sea. Physical conditions in this area are characterized by large seasonal contrasts between partial sea-ice cover in winter and sprin...

High-latitude aquatic ecosystems are responding to rapid climate warming. A longer ice-free season with higher water temperatures may accelerate somatic growth in lake ectotherms, leading to widespread ecological implications. In fish, rising temperatures are expected to boost rates of food intake and conversion, and predictions based on empirical...

Et varmere klima fører til raske temperaturendringer i Arktis, med hurtig tap av havis og endrede habitater for mange arter. Varmere havstrømmer og smelting av havis åpner samtidig for økt menneskelig tilstedeværelse og bruk av arktiske havområder. Slike endringer påvirker hvordan arktiske økosystemer eksponeres for miljøstressorer, og fører til øk...

High latitude ecosystems are experiencing the most rapid warming on earth, expected to trigger a diverse array of ecological responses. Climate warming affects the ecophysiology of fish, and fish close to the cold end of their thermal distribution are expected to increase somatic growth from increased temperatures and a prolonged growth season, whi...

1. High latitude ecosystems are experiencing the most rapid warming on earth, expected to trigger a diverse array of ecological responses. Climate warming affects the ecophysiology of fish, and fish close to the cold end of their thermal distribution are expected to increase somatic growth from increased temperatures and a prolonged growth season,...

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...

Aim We assessed temporal trends in functional diversity of the deep‐sea demersal fish communities of East Greenland to characterize ecological responses to rising sea temperatures. Location The study region encompasses a shelf and slope area located offshore between 63°N and 66°N, east of Greenland. Methods A unique dataset of demersal fish abund...

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...

As an Arctic gateway, the Norwegian Sea sustains a rich diversity of seasonal and resident species of soniferous animals, vulnerable to the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities. We show the occurrence of seasonal patterns of acoustic signals in a small canyon off Northern Norway, and investigate cetacean vocal behavior, human-made...

Purpose To describe medication adherence to lipid-lowering drugs (LLDs), antihypertensive drugs, and acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) among persons with coronary heart disease (CHD) and explore its association with low-density-lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Methods Based on record linkage between the seventh wa...

Atlantic salmon is an economically and culturally important species. The species encounters several natural and man-made threats during its migration between fresh water and the ocean, which in combination may explain its ongoing decline. With the aim to better understand whether post-smolt behaviour is influenced by physical oceanographic conditio...

The biogeographic transition from boreal to Arctic marine communities entails a strong taxonomic and functional turnover. Communities living in these areas are being strongly affected by climate warming with rapid reorganizations and change in ecosystem functioning. We assess the megabenthic species composition and functional character in a transit...

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...

Management targets for biodiversity preservation are shifting from individual species to an ecosystem-wide focus. Indeed, the perturbation analysis of interaction networks, such as food webs, better captures the response of biodiversity to environmental pressures than single-species considerations. Here we propose a framework that examines food web...

The assessment of climate impact on marine communities dwelling deeper than the well- studied shelf seas has been hampered by the lack of long- term data. For a long time, the prevailing expectation has been that thermal stability in deep ocean layers will delay ecosystem responses to warming. Few observational studies have challenged this view and...

The abundance of the parasitic salmon louse has increased with the growth in aquaculture of salmonids in open net pens. This represents a threat to wild salmonid populations as well as a key limiting factor for salmon farming. The Norwegian ‘traffic light’ management system for salmon farming aims to increase aquaculture production while securing s...

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 Atlantic gateway to the Arctic Ocean is influenced by vigorous inflows of Atlantic Water. The high-latitude impacts of these inflows have strengthened owing to climate change, particularly since 2000, driving so-called ‘Atlantification’ — a transition of Arctic waters to a state more closely resembling that of the Atlantic. In this Review, we d...

As temperatures rise, motile species start to redistribute to more suitable areas, potentially affecting the persistence of several resident species and altering biodiversity and ecosystem functions. In the Barents Sea, a hotspot for global warming, marine fish from boreal regions have been increasingly found in the more exclusive Arctic region. He...

The analysis of the dynamics of interaction networks (i.e. trophic webs) better capture the state of ecosystem facing a perturbation than individual species dynamics could. We propose a framework that examines network robustness to a given perturbation at the local (species), mesoscale (species directly linked together) and global (network) level,...

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.

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...

To achieve effective management and understanding of risks associated with increasing anthropogenic pressures in the ocean, it is essential to successfully and efficiently collect data with high spatio–temporal resolution and coverage. Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are an example of technological advances with potential to provide improved...

In recent years, Arctic and sub-Arctic fish communities have shown extensive reorganization on shelves and in shallow waters, but little is known about the ecological impact of environmental changes in deeper waters. We examined temporal changes (1998-2016) in fish diversity and community structure based on research survey data from East Greenland,...

Climate warming influences structure and function of Arctic benthic ecosystems. Assessing the response of these systems to perturbations requires long-term studies addressing key ecological processes related to recolonization and succession of species. Based on unique time-series (1980–2017), this study addresses successional patterns of hard-botto...

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...

The Barents Sea is a nursery area for many commercially and ecologically important fish stocks, and this whole region is presently subject to rapid climatic change from a cold period in the 1980s to a record warm period in the latest decade, with a peak in 2016. The present study focuses exclusively on year 2016, which was characterized by record w...

Atlantic salmon in aquaculture act as reservoir hosts and vectors of parasites like salmon lice and this parasite is shown to harm wild salmonid populations. In this study, n = 29,817 tagged Atlantic salmon were studied in four release trials. Half of the released fish were given prophylactic treatment against lice, the other half represented sham...

Ecosystems at high latitudes are exposed to some of the highest rates of climate warming on earth, and freshwater ecosystems in those regions are already experiencing extended ice‐free seasons and warmer waters. The dominant fish species in these ecosystems are cold‐water salmonids, which play a central ecological role in lake ecosystems, where the...

Marine mammals are important players in the Barents Sea ecosystem but their structural role in the foodweb has been little explored. We compare foodweb-related characteristics within and between phylogenetic groups for 19 marine mammals. As a group, they directly connect to the most central species (i.e cod and haddock) in the Barents Sea (i.e. cod...

A fundamental challenge in ecology is to understand why species are found where they are and predict where they are likely to occur in the future. Trait-based approaches may provide such understanding, because it is the traits and adaptations of species that determine which environments they can inhabit. It is therefore important to identify key tr...

The ability of organisms to adapt their foraging behaviour to spatial variations in food availability and habitat quality is crucial to maximize energy intake and hence fitness. Under ideal conditions, habitat selection should result in a spatial distribution of individuals such that their fitness (energy reserves or condition) is roughly equal acr...

Multiple stressors are increasingly affecting organisms and communities, thereby modifying ecosystems' state and functioning. Raising awareness about the threat from multiple stressors has increased the number of experimental and observational studies specifically addressing consequences of stressor interactions on biota. Most studies measure the d...

The main challenge for the European seafood industry is to ensure sustainable production volume while adapting to climate warming. Marine fisheries mainly target 41 species which account for 80% of the seafood production in Europe. The remaining 20% comes from marine and freshwater aquaculture, which harvest mainly 5 and 11 species, respectively. E...

When facing environmental change and intensified anthropogenic impact on marine ecosystems, extensive knowledge of how these systems are functioning is required in order to manage them properly. However, in high-latitude ecosystems, where climate change is expected to have substantial ecological impact, the ecosystem functions of biological species...

Summary statistics of ANOVA on the species' trophic level (TL) as function of functional group. Significant (alpha = 0.05; Bonferroni corrected alpha = 0.005) relationships in longevity among functional groups are indicated in bold. (DOCX)

Summary statistics of ANOVA on the species' longevity as function of functional group. Significant (alpha = 0.05; Bonferroni corrected alpha = 0.005) relationships in longevity among functional groups are indicated in bold. (DOCX)

Summary statistics of ANOVA on the species' maximum body length (ML) as function of functional group. Significant (alpha = 0.05; Bonferroni corrected alpha = 0.005) relationships in longevity among functional groups are indicated in bold. (DOCX)

In the Arctic, rising seawater temperatures and increasing underwater light caused by reductions in sea ice cover are expected to change the structure of arctic marine communities. Substantial, sometimes sudden, increases in macroalgal productivity and biomass have already been observed in arctic rocky bottom communities. These macroalgal responses...

In this data article, we present the 2004–2014 average European seafood production volume by production sector, country, and species. The production data originates from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and covers three production sectors: Marine fisheries, marine aquaculture, and freshwater production. We present t...

There is urgent need to develop novel treatment strategies to reduce antimicrobial resistance. Collateral sensitivity (CS), where resistance to one antimicrobial increases susceptibility to other drugs, might enable selection against resistance during treatment. However, the success of this approach would depend on the conservation of CS networks a...

We review three long‐term research programs performed over the last four decades on the ecology and management of oligotrophic lake systems with different fish communities at 69° N in Norway. Through whole‐lake perturbation experiments, intensive culling of stunted fish removed 35 tons (1984–1991) of Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus in Takvatn (15 k...

Large‐scale patterns in species diversity and community composition are associated with environmental gradients, but the implications of these patterns for food‐web structure are still unclear. Here, we investigated how spatial patterns in food‐web structure are associated with environmental gradients in the Barents Sea, a highly productive shelf s...

There is urgent need to develop novel treatment strategies to reduce antimicrobial resistance. Collateral sensitivity (CS), where resistance to one antimicrobial increases susceptibility to other drugs, is a uniquely promising strategy that enables selection against resistance during treatment. However, using CS-informed therapy depends on conserve...

The Arctic Barents Sea is experiencing a record temperature increase, a poleward shift in the distributions of commercial fish stocks, and invasion by the snow crab, a new predator. To evaluate benthic community vulnerability when exposed to seawater warming, bottom trawling, and predation from a new predator, we used a trait-based approach and app...

Significance Arctic marine ecosystems are experiencing a rapid biogeographic change following the highest warming rates observed around the globe in recent decades. Currently, there are no studies of how the observed shifts in species composition are affecting Arctic marine ecosystem functioning at a biogeographic scale. We address this issue via f...

High antibiotic consumption rates are associated to high prevalence of antimicrobial resistance. Geographical differences in dispensing rates of antibiotics are frequently analysed using statistical methods addressing the central tendency of the data. Yet, examining extreme quantiles may be of equal or greater interest if the problem relates to the...

One third of fish-allergic patients tolerate at least one fish species. Specific IgE testing can identify most patients with fish allergy and reduce the need of oral challenges in the diagnostic work-up.

Background Natural transformation enables acquisition of adaptive traits and drives genome evolution in prokaryotes. Yet, the selective forces responsible for the evolution and maintenance of natural transformation remain elusive since taken-up DNA has also been hypothesized to provide benefits such as nutrients or templates for DNA repair to indiv...

Biogeographical patterns have an ecological basis, but few empirical studies possess the necessary scale and resolution relevant for investigation. The Barents Sea shelf provides an ideal study area, as it is a transition area between Atlantic and Arctic regions, and is sampled by a comprehensive survey of all major functional groups. We studied sp...

The Barents Sea has experienced substantial warming over the last few decades with expansion of relatively warm Atlantic water and reduction in sea ice. Based on a review of relevant literature and additional analyses, we report changes in the pelagic compartment associated with this warming using data from autumn surveys (acoustic capelin, 0-group...

The occurrence of trophically transmitted intestinal parasites in Arctic charr was analyzed from data material collected over two decades from Lake Takvatn, northern Norway. The main objectives were to investigate (i) between-year variation in parasite infracommunity composition, (ii) between-host variation in infracommunity composition, and (iii)...

Extreme climatic events, such as heatwaves and droughts, are occurring more frequently in many regions of the world. Lakes may be especially vulnerable to climatic perturbations, which can trigger sudden ecosystem changes through alterations in the hydrologic regime. However, the nature of lake response to climatic extremes, and associated longterm...

Climate-driven poleward shifts, leading to changes in species composition and relative abundances, have been recently documented in the Arctic. Among the fastest moving species are boreal generalist fish which are expected to affect arctic marine food web structure and ecosystem functioning substantially. Here, we address structural changes at the...