Exploring the Potential of Forecasting Fish Distributions in the North East Atlantic With a Dynamic Earth System Model, Exemplified by the Suitable Spawning Habitat of Blue Whiting

Anna K Miesner,Patrick Pieper,Vimal Koul,Sebastian Brune,Corinna Schrum,Johanna Baehr

doi:10.3389/fmars.2021.777427

Anna K Miesner, Patrick Pieper + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.777427

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Abstract

Local oceanographic variability strongly influences the spawning distribution of blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou). Here, we explore the potential of using a dynamic Earth System Model (ESM) to forecast the suitable spawning habitat of blue whiting to assist management. Retrospective forecasts of temperature and salinity with the Max Planck Institute ESM (MPI-ESM) show significant skill within blue whiting’s spawning region and spawning depth (250–600 m) during the peak months of spawning. While persistence forecasts perform well at shorter lead times (≤2 years), retrospective forecasts with MPI-ESM are clearly more skilful than persistence in predicting salinity at longer lead times. Our results indicate that retrospective forecasts of the suitable spawning habitat of blue whiting based on predicted salinity outperform those based on calibrated species distribution models. In particular, we find high predictive skill for the suitable spawning habitat based on salinity predictions around one year ahead in the area of Rockall-Hatton Plateau. Our approach shows that retrospective forecasts with MPI-ESM show a better ability to differentiate between the presence and absence of suitable habitat over Rockall Plateau compared to persistence. Our study highlights that physical-biological forecasts based on ESMs could be crucial for developing distributional forecasts of marine organisms in the North East Atlantic.

Highlights

Current advances of dynamic Earth System Models (ESMs) have permitted skilful predictions of the marine climate on seasonal to decadal timescales and thereby sparked the development of marine biological forecasts (Payne et al, 2017; Tommasi et al, 2017a; Koul et al, 2021)
Within the spawning region and spawning depth of blue whiting, anomalies of temperature agree well in EN4-analysis and Max Planck Institute ESM (MPI-ESM)-assim, while differences are more pronounced in terms of salinity
The marine climate in the spawning region of blue whiting is influenced by the low-frequency dynamics of the Subpolar Gyre (SPG) that contributes to recurrent periods of relatively high or relatively low salinity spanning over 5–10 years (Holliday et al, 2000; Koul et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

Current advances of dynamic Earth System Models (ESMs) have permitted skilful predictions of the marine climate (i.e., temperature and salinity) on seasonal to decadal timescales and thereby sparked the development of marine biological forecasts (Payne et al, 2017; Tommasi et al, 2017a; Koul et al, 2021). The majority of operational examples are distributional forecasts of marine organisms, mostly fish, which are provided at near-real-time to seasonal timescales (Hobday et al, 2011; Eveson et al, 2015; Kaplan et al, 2016; Siedlecki et al, 2016; Lehodey et al, 2018; Malick et al, 2020) This is far below the predictive potential of the ocean where skilful predictions are possible several years and even a decade in advance, as shown in particular for the North Atlantic (Matei et al, 2012; Shaffrey et al, 2017; Tommasi et al, 2017b; Yeager and Robson, 2017). This species serves as an ideal case study to explore the potential of forecasting distributional changes at inter-annual to multi-annual time scales

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