Climate change and freshwater fisheries

Abstract

Climate change is among the most serious environmental challenge facing humanity and the ecosystems that provide the goods and services on which it relies. Climate change has had a major historical influence on global biodiversity and will continue to impact the structure and function of natural ecosystems, including the provision of natural services such as fisheries. Freshwater fishery professionals (e.g. fishery managers, fish biologists, fishery scientists and fishers) need to be informed regarding the likely impacts of climate change. Written for such an audience, this chapter reviews the drivers of climatic change and the means by which its impacts are predicted. It details observed and future predicted effects of climate change on freshwater ecosystems across Arctic, temperate and tropical climatic zones and highlights those areas where data are currently limiting our understanding of how and if climate change is affecting freshwater fisheries. Observed and predicted consequences of climatic change on the ecology of freshwater fishes are examined at different levels of biological organization, including individual, population, community and ecosystem levels, and future scenarios are discussed. The chapter examines the likely impacts of such changes on the exploitation and management of freshwater fishes across recreational, artisanal and commercial fishery sectors, including observations on the vulnerability of fishers themselves to climate change.

Susceptibility of European freshwater fish to climate change: Species profiling based on life‐history and environmental characteristics

“…Zoogeography of fishes is therefore greatly influenced by the average and spread of temperatures experienced in a given watershed (Isaak & Rieman, ; Pörtner & Farrell, ). Relative to seas and oceans, freshwater habitats are more drastically impacted by changes to climate, especially due to changes to temperature and flow, and climate change is projected to strongly affect freshwater fish communities (Buisson, Thuiller, Lek, Lim, & Grenouillet, ; Graham & Harrod, ; Harrod, ; O'Reilly, Alin, Plisnier, Cohen, & McKee, ; Radinger et al, ). Combined with other anthropogenic impacts (e.g., land use change and thermal pollution; Radinger et al, ; Raptis, Boucher, & Pfister, ), climate change will restrict or redraw thermal envelopes, contribute to population declines and local extinctions, and result in shifts in the distribution of species (Booth, Bond, & Macreadie, ; Ficke, Myrick, & Hansen, ; Filipe, Lawrence, & Bonada, ; Woodward, Perkins, & Brown, ).…”

Relationship between fish assemblage and angler catch in the Sulejów Reservoir, central Poland, in the context of a warming climate

“…Stocking efficiency is limited by constant and restricted amounts of stocked fish (Table S1), but also because stocking is used as part of a compulsory administrative procedure, not as a proactive management tool (Cowx, 1994(Cowx, , 1998. Projected climate change risks for fish and fisheries reviewed recently by Harrod (2015) are expected to occur in synergy with non-climate stressors, such as eutrophication or habitat and services degradation, and result in conflicts between different stakeholders (Jeppesen et al, 2010(Jeppesen et al, , 2012Kosten et al, 2012;Kundzewicz et al, 2008;Moss et al, 2011). However, knowledge regarding the possible consequences of a warming climate is based to great extent on extreme examples, for example, highly specialised stenotopic species (Graham & Harrod, 2009) or heavily impacted environments (Jeppesen et al, 2015).…”

Conceptualising the interactive effects of climate change and biological invasions on subarctic freshwater fish

“…For example, Arctic charr were better able to exploit prey resources than brown trout in cold, low‐productivity lakes when compared to warm productive lakes (Finstad et al., ). In relation to the second hypothesis (positive native‐exotic species richness), climate change is increasing regional species richness in subarctic regions (Harrod, ; Hayden, Harrod, & Kahilainen, ; Hayden, Holopainen, et al., , 2013b). As subarctic freshwaters become environmentally suitable for cool‐ and warm‐water‐adapted species, the increase in species richness is unlikely to represent a deterrent to further invasion, potentially resulting in an “invasion meltdown” scenario (where the invasion of one species facilitates others and enhances effects for native ecosystems; Simberloff & Von Holle, ).…”

“…Understanding and predicting the consequences of climate change and extreme climate events on global biodiversity has become a core research theme in ecology (Diez et al, 2012;Grimm et al, 2013;Jentsch, Kreyling, & Beierkuhnlein, 2007;Thompson, Beardall, Beringer, Grace, & Sardina, 2013;Thuiller, 2007). Consequently, there is a strong interest in identifying general, global principles of climate change impacts among biomes, ecosystem types, and levels of ecological organization (Harley et al, 2006;Harrod, 2015;Scheffers et al, 2016;Woodward, Perkins, & Brown, 2010). However, the search for general principles requires understanding of the ecological effects of climate change within biomes and ecosystem types to determine context-specific responses.…”