Fishing 'destabilises Black Sea' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

Excessive fishing in the Black Sea has triggered major changes in the marine ecosystem, scientists suggest.

The collapse of fish stocks altered the sea's food chain, triggering a "regime shift" that allowed a species of invasive jellyfish to bloom, they said.

But curbing fishing will not be enough to return the habitat to a stable state unless pollution and biodiversity controls are also adopted, they warn.

The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A long-term study by Georgi Daskalov, from the UK's Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), and colleagues found that excessive fishing had resulted in a series of shifts in the sea's ecosystem over the past 50 years.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6719965.stm