Abstract
AbstractThe spectre of increasing impacts on exploited fish stocks in consequence of warmer climate conditions has become a major concern over the last decades. It is now imperative to improve the way we project the effects of future climate warming on fisheries. While estimating future climate‐induced changes in fish distribution is an important contribution to sustainable resource management, the impacts on European small pelagic fish—representing over 50% of the landings in the Mediterranean and Black Sea between 2000 and 2013—are yet largely understudied. Here, we investigated potential changes in the spatial distribution of seven of the most harvested small pelagic fish species in Europe under several climate change scenarios over the 21st century. For each species, we considered eight Species Distribution Models (SDMs), five General Circulation Models (GCMs) and three emission scenarios (the IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways; RCPs). Under all scenarios, our results revealed that the environmental suitability for most of the seven species may strongly decrease in the Mediterranean and western North Sea while increasing in the Black and Baltic Seas. This potential northward range expansion of species is supported by a strong convergence among projections and a low variability between RCPs. Under the most pessimistic scenario (RCP8.5), climate‐related local extinctions were expected in the south‐eastern Mediterranean basin. Our results highlight that a multi‐SDM, multi‐GCM, multi‐RCP approach is needed to produce more robust ecological scenarios of changes in exploited fish stocks in order to better anticipate the economic and social consequences of global climate change.
Highlights
European Small Pelagic Fish (SPF) species have a key economic and ecological role (Checkley et al, 2009; Fréon et al, 2005)
Our study aims to address this gap in knowledge by examining (a) long-term and (b) large-scale distributional range projections under different climate change scenarios (IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways; RCP) for a set of seven largely harvested European Small Pelagic Fish (SPF) species of major ecological and economic importance (Checkley et al, 2009; Fréon et al, 2005): Atlantic horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus, Carangidae), European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus, Clupeidae), European sprat (Sprattus sprattus, Clupeidae), European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus, Engraulidae), Mediterranean horse mackerel (Trachurus mediteraneus, Carangidae), round sardinella (Sardinella aurita, Clupeidae) and bogue (Boops boops, Sparidae)
Based on the contemporary SPFs distribution retrieved from Schickele et al (2020) and using a multi-Species Distribution Models (SDMs), multi-General Circulation Models (GCMs) and multi-RCP approach, we investigated future potential range shifts of these largely harvested species at the European scale
Summary
European Small Pelagic Fish (SPF) species have a key economic and ecological role (Checkley et al, 2009; Fréon et al, 2005). KEYWORDS climate change, ecological niche, exclusive economic zone, range shift, species distribution models, uncertainties
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