Aspects of the ecology of a Boreal system

The northernmost Atlantic marine ecosystems (or Boreal systems) tend to have a cod stock as a major predator and shrimp and capelin among the prey species. Variations have been observed in the abundance of all cod stocks and variations have been measured in some of the shrimp and capelin stocks. Some models of these systems and some stomach content analyses have indicated that these interactions should be quite important. When these interactions are important enough and measurement errors are sufficiently small, the interactions between stocks should show up in aggregate abundance and growth indices. This paper illustrates several such effects in the Boreal system off Iceland.