Lagged recovery of fish spatial distributions following a cold-water perturbation

M D Robertson,F Zhang,J Gao,P M Regular,M J Morgan

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-89066-x

M D Robertson, F Zhang + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89066-x

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Abstract

Anomalous local temperature and extreme events (e.g. heat-waves) can cause rapid change and gradual recovery of local environmental conditions. However, few studies have tested whether species distribution can recover following returning environmental conditions. Here, we tested for change and recovery of the spatial distributions of two flatfish populations, American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides) and yellowtail flounder (Limanda ferruginea), in response to consecutive decreasing and increasing water temperature on the Grand Bank off Newfoundland, Canada from 1985 to 2018. Using a Vector Autoregressive Spatiotemporal model, we found the distributions of both species shifted southwards following a period when anomalous cold water covered the northern sections of the Grand Bank. After accounting for density-dependent effects, we observed that yellowtail flounder re-distributed northwards when water temperature returned and exceeded levels recorded before the cold period, while the spatial distribution of American plaice has not recovered. Our study demonstrates nonlinear effects of an environmental factor on species distribution, implying the possibility of irreversible (or hard-to-reverse) changes of species distribution following a rapid change and gradual recovery of environmental conditions.

Highlights

Anomalous local temperature and extreme events can cause rapid change and gradual recovery of local environmental conditions
We examined the spatiotemporal correlation of temperature across space through time (Fig. S6), which provided further evidence that the spatial pattern of water temperature was similar through time
We identified evidence that yellowtail flounder and American plaice have undergone shifts in their distribution over the past 35 years

Summary

Introduction

Anomalous local temperature and extreme events (e.g. heat-waves) can cause rapid change and gradual recovery of local environmental conditions. We tested for change and recovery of the spatial distributions of two flatfish populations, American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides) and yellowtail flounder (Limanda ferruginea), in response to consecutive decreasing and increasing water temperature on the Grand Bank off Newfoundland, Canada from 1985 to 2018. Few studies have tested whether species distribution can recover following returning environmental conditions (Fig. 1; i.e. whether species distribution responds linearly to environmental factors) This is especially important to natural resource management because irreversible (or hard-to-reverse) changes in species distributions may lead to spatial mismatch with management/ conservation areas, increasing the risks of local overexploitation or underutilization of natural resources[17]. We aim to test for change and recovery of the spatial distributions of two flatfish populations, American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides) and yellowtail flounder (Limanda ferruginea), in response to consecutive decreasing and increasing temperatures on the Grand Bank off Newfoundland, Canada. More detailed descriptions of each method can be found in “Materials and Methods” section

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