El Niño–Southern Oscillation impacts on jumbo squid habitat: Implication for fisheries management

Abstract

1. Dosidicus gigas is an ecologically and economically important squid species extensively distributed in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Its habitat is extremely sensitive to climatic and environmental variability.2. The relationship between habitat pattern of D. gigas and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO, divided into the El Niño, ENSO-neutral, and La Niña events) was assessed from 1950 to 2015, using a habitat suitability index (HSI) modelling approach including two crucial environmental variables: sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface height anomaly (SSHA).3. On the basis of cross-correlation analysis, it showed that both SST anomaly and SSHA were significantly positively related to the ENSO index. Moreover, a significantly negative association was found between the HSI values and the ENSO index.4. Due to the El Niño events, SST off Peru became higher and sea level rose, resulting in contracted areas of suitable SST and SSHA; consequently, suitable habitats for D. gigas dramatically decreased. In contrast, during the ENSO-neutral and La Niña years, the extent of suitable SST and SSHA increased due to the colder water and lower sea level, and suitable habitat for D. gigas expanded. 5. Moreover, the latitudinal gravity centre of HSI was significantly positively associated with the ENSO index. Relative to the ENSO-neutral and La Niña years, a southward movement of the monthly preferred SST isotherm for D. gigas during the El Niño years could explain the occurrence of more suitable habitats in southern waters off Peru.6. These findings suggested that the ENSO event plays an important role in regulating environmental conditions off Peru and further affected the spatio-temporal distribution of D. gigas habitat.

Broad‐scale climate variation drives the dynamics of animal populations: a global multi‐taxa analysis

“…Thus, it may be possible to enable long‐term forecasting of rodent outbreaks, production of animals for human use, or climatic threats to endangered species. The use of ENSO signals has been suggested for early pest management in China (Zhang & Wang, 1998; Jiang et al ., 2011) and Australia (Letnic & Dickman, 2006), for fisheries and aquaculture management in the Pacific (Bertrand et al ., 2020; Yu et al ., 2021), and for early warnings for conservation of primates in Brazil (Wiederholt & Post, 2010). Our ability to use ENSO or NAO cycles to predict animal population trajectories strongly depends on understanding the relationship of these broad‐scale climate factors to animal populations via their effects on local‐scale climate factors, and the links between these remain worthy of further investigation.…”

Effects of Climate Events on Abundance and Distribution of Major Commercial Fishes in the Beibu Gulf, South China Sea

“…The vulnerability across the Pacific coast is primarily affected by ENSO [19]. Overall, climate forcing of ENSO will affect physical processes [20,21], primary production [22,23], and prey-predator relations [24] in local marine ecosystems, and thereby ultimately impact habitats [25], migration patterns [26], population recruitments [27], and food webs [28], thus their effects may experience time lags before being felt via, for instance, changes in fishing efforts. Past investigations have shown that fisheries in the Pacific Ocean were strongly influenced by ENSO events, with average landings decreasing ~0.8 million tons in El Niño and increasing ~1.1 million tons in La Niña years since 1950 [29].…”