BarentsPortal

To understand the overall dynamics of an ecosystem and the way it is affected by human activities, it is important to consider both the impact of natural environmental variations and multispecies interactions. This chapter therefore starts (Abiotic impact) with a description of effects from environmental variation on the biological groups described earlier in chapter Biotic components. It then goes on to describe multipsecies interactions within and between these groups (Biotic interactions). Impact from the human activities described earlier (chapter Human activities) is the focus of the next subchapter (Human impact). In the last subchapter (Overall picture) it is discussed how the different kinds of interactions and impact form the broad and overall general dynamics in the Barents Sea ecosystem.