Modelling marine ecosystems using the Ecopath with Ecosim food web approach: New insights to address complex dynamics after 30 years of developments

Marine and coastal ecosystems provide multiple benefits that are fundamental to human wellbeing, but human actions are disrupting and impacting the Earth's ecosystems at an alarming rate. The Ecopath approach was designed to understand the impact of the wide range of anthropogenic pressures that are exerted on the oceans, and of management options for countering these, and it has over the last thirty years grown into a complex and capable modelling framework: “Ecopath with Ecosim” – with Ecospace added on. Exciting new developments of the approach are contributing to address critical and complex issues related to the health of marine ecosystems such as invasion of species, illegal fishing activities, climate change and the development of new activities (e.g., aquaculture and infrastructure development) in coastal areas. This Special Issue presents new findings from selected case studies around the world using advanced features of Ecopath with Ecosim that were presented at the International Conference “Ecopath 30 Years-Modelling ecosystem dynamics: beyond boundaries with EwE” (November 2014, Barcelona, Spain). These contributions showcase new capabilities and findings of Ecopath with Ecosim models applications. Together these papers show that a range of diverse ecological, economic, social and governance drivers are often interacting at dynamic and temporal scales to modify marine resources, which underlines that managing marine ecosystems needs a continuous effort to integrate multiple processes.