Adaptation of North Atlantic Albacore Fishery to Climate Change: Yet Another Potential Benefit of Harvest Control Rules

Gorka Merino,Eider Andonegi,Laurence T Kell,Agurtzane Urtizberea,Igor Arregui,Hilario Murua,Paul De Bruyn,Josu Santiago,Haritz Arrizabalaga

doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00620

Gorka Merino, Eider Andonegi + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00620

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Abstract

Fisheries are constrained by ecosystem productivity and management effectiveness. Climate change is already producing impacts on marine ecosystems through overall changes in habitats, productivity and increased variability of environmental conditions. The way how these will affect fisheries is under debate and, also is the best course of actions to face this global challenge. harvest control rules are sets of pre-agreed rules that can be used to determine catch limits periodically and describe how harvest is automatically controlled by management in relation to the state of some indicator of stock status. In 2017, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas adopted a harvest control rule for North Atlantic albacore. This harvest control rule was evaluated using Management Strategy Evaluation against the main sources of uncertainty inherent to this fishery. Here, we use the same framework to evaluate the robustness of the adopted rule against two types of potential climate change impacts on North Atlantic albacore dynamics. First, we evaluate how the control rule would perform in the event of overall changes in productivity in the North Atlantic and second, against increases in climate driven recruitment variability. Overall, our results suggest that the adopted harvest control rule is robust to these climate driven impacts and also suggests bounds at which the current management framework would be vulnerable to climate change. Throughout the manuscript we also discuss the potential of harvest control rules and harvest strategies to adapt fisheries management to a changing environment. Our main conclusion is that despite the many uncertainties on climate impacts on fisheries, efficient fisheries management will be critical to ensure the sustainability of fisheries in the future.

Highlights

Marine fisheries are an important source of food and livelihood worldwide (Garcia and Rosenberg, 2010; Rice and Garcia, 2011)
This is converted into operational objectives relative to stock status, safety, catch and stability through ICCAT’s recommendation 16–06 (ICCAT, 2016b) for North Atlantic albacore: The management objective is to maintain the stock in the green quadrant of the Kobe plot (B > BMSY and F < fishing mortality associated to MSY (FMSY) ) with at least 60% probability and a low probability of being outside biological limits, while maximizing long-term catch, and minimizing the inter-annual fluctuations in Total Allowable Catch (TAC)
For all the climate impacts characterized in this study, the HCR adopted for North Atlantic albacore in 2017 would achieve ICCAT’s management objective of maintaining the stock in the green quadrant of the Kobe plot with a probability higher than 60% (Figure 6)

Summary

Introduction

Marine fisheries are an important source of food and livelihood worldwide (Garcia and Rosenberg, 2010; Rice and Garcia, 2011). Global warming is modifying oceanic biological response patterns by changing habitats’ physical and chemical properties (Sarmiento et al, 2004), by amplifying environmental fluctuations (Lehodey et al, 2006) and by modifying the overall flux of energy and production through marine ecosystems (Brander, 2007; Blanchard et al, 2012). Climate change influences fishery production through changes in primary production, food web interactions and the life history and distribution of fish (Blanchard et al, 2012). Changes in primary production follow from oceanic physical and chemical environment (Sarmiento et al, 2004), while changes in primary production affect the productivity of the food webs (Brander, 2007; Blanchard et al, 2012). Fish are adapted to their environment through life-history strategies or traits, such as their growth and fecundity (Moyle et al, 1986; VilaGispert et al, 2005), which are predicted to be affected by climate driven environmental changes (Chavez et al, 2003; Cheung et al, 2012)

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