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Abstract
An integrated ecosystem model including fishing and the impact of rising temperatures, relative to species’ thermal ranges, was used to assess the cumulative effect of future climate change and sustainable levels of fishing pressure on selected target species. Historically, important stocks of cod and whiting showed declining trends caused by high fisheries exploitation and strong top-down control by their main predators (grey seals and saithe). In a no-change climate scenario these stocks recovered under sustainable management scenarios due to the cumulative effect of reduced fishing and predation mortalities cascading through the food-web. However, rising temperature jeopardised boreal stenothermal species: causing severe declines in grey seals, cod, herring and haddock, while eurythermal species were not affected. The positive effect of a higher optimum temperature for whiting, in parallel with declines of its predators such as seals and cod, resulted in a strong increase for this stock under rising temperature scenarios, indicating a possible change in the contribution of stocks to the overall catch by the end of the century. These results highlight the importance of including environmental change in the ecosystem approach to achieve sustainable fisheries management.
Highlights
Overexploitation of natural resources is one of the greatest anthropogenic pressures impacting the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems over short time scales[1,2]
Fishing-induced ecosystem changes often coincide with rising temperatures driven by climate change, requiring climate-change effects to be considered in model forecasts
Climate variability has often been identified as a major driver of ecosystem dynamics[14], and quantified using indicators such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)[15], El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)[16,17], Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)[18,19,20,21] and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)[22]
Summary
Overexploitation of natural resources is one of the greatest anthropogenic pressures impacting the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems over short time scales[1,2]. An integrated methodology including the temperature tolerances of species is needed to assess the impact of climate change on fisheries[10], on ecosystem diversity[11], and the social-ecological responses to potential ecosystem changes[12] Both climate variability and climate change affect marine ecosystems: ‘climate variability’ is a natural short-term fluctuation over a long-term average[13] such as ocean-atmosphere coupling phenomena and decadal oscillations. Even in the marine environment, physical barriers (e.g. current, gyre, trenches), lack of suitable habitat (e.g. topography, depth, oxygen) and antagonistic trophic interactions (e.g. competition and predation) can represent barriers to temperature-driven poleward dispersal[30] These barriers to dispersal make some species more vulnerable to climate change than others[24,31]. Poleward distribution shifts are increasing the relative presence and abundance of warm-water species in mid- to high-latitude regions (such as the Bering Sea, Barents Sea, Nordic Sea, North Sea, and Tasman Sea) and affecting community functioning and diversity[32,33]
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