In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.

In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.

In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.

In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.

In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.

In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.

In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.

In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.

In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.

In addition to the difficulties of lack of methodological clarity in the competent authorities that come every six years to report environmental status on the basis of this descriptor, the scientific community has also sought, in the Azores, to assist the administration in this task by seeking appropriate tools to meet the requirements of the implementation of the MSFD. It is therefore that the IMAR-Uç team, led by the researcher Telmo Morato, published in 2016 the description of the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores (Morato et al. 2016), with the explicit purpose of supporting the implementation of the MSFD assessment of D4, thereby seeking to provide tools for the authorities to enable the development of an ecosystem based marine environment management, as the Directive provides, but which will be difficult to implement for a variety of reasons (techniques, information gaps, lack of articulation between the different Union environmental management instruments and their linkage with sectors that manage the exploitation of living marine resources such as the Common Fisheries Policy). The team led by the researcher, Mr Rui Pinho, on the other hand, has tried to assess, on the basis of information directly from the experimental fisheries scientific surveys and the fishing statistics reflecting the official catches, the impacts of fishing pressure on the structure of the marine ecosystem in the Azores, through the analysis of the variation of the sizes which make up the populations of commercially exploited species, or through the temporal variation in the mean trophic level of the catches (Santos et al. 2019, Pinho et al. in prep.). While reporting on this descriptor falls under the sole responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, as the environmental authority for the marine environment of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, it benefits from the results that have been obtained from these two research teams, which have been developing work in this area.