Slow adaptation in the face of rapid warming leads to collapse of the Gulf of Maine cod fishery

Pershing, Andrew J.; Alexander, Michael A.; Hernandez, Christina M.; Kerr, Lisa A.; Bris, Arnault Le; Mills, Katherine E.; Nye, Janet A.; Record, Nicholas R.; Scannell, Hillary A.; Scott, James D.; Sherwood, Graham D.; Thomas, Andrew C.

doi:10.1126/science.aac9819

Cited by 761 publications

(705 citation statements)

References 35 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

671

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Weak accountability, including low levels of monitoring, continued from the previous command-and-control system to the new catch-share system, resulting in on-going cheating. In addition, historic overfishing and unprecedented warming of the Northwest Atlantic have resulted in slow recovery and changing baselines for some of the iconic, high-profile stocks (50).…”

Section: Economic Incentives and Fishing: Results And Lessons Learnedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, if stocks are already significantly depleted, reductions in catch are necessary to rebuild stocks regardless of the management system. Moreover, warmer waters and other impacts of climate change may introduce new stresses on fished populations, fishing communities, and ecosystems (50).…”

Section: Economic Incentives and Fishing: Results And Lessons Learnedmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The right incentives enable ocean sustainability successes and provide hope for the future

Lubchenco

Cerny-Chipman

Reimer

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

131

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Healthy ocean ecosystems are needed to sustain people and livelihoods and to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Using the ocean sustainably requires overcoming many formidable challenges: overfishing, climate change, ocean acidification, and pollution. Despite gloomy forecasts, there is reason for hope. New tools, practices, and partnerships are beginning to transform local fisheries, biodiversity conservation, and marine spatial planning. The challenge is to bring them to a global scale. We dissect recent successes using a complex adaptive-systems (CAS) framework, which acknowledges the interconnectedness of social and ecological systems. Understanding how policies and practices change the feedbacks in CASs by altering the behavior of different system components is critical for building robust, sustainable states with favorable emergent properties. Our review reveals that altering incentives—either economic or social norms, or both—can achieve positive outcomes. For example, introduction of well-designed rights-based or secure-access fisheries and ecosystem service accounting shifts economic incentives to align conservation and economic benefits. Modifying social norms can create conditions that incentivize a company, country, or individual to fish sustainably, curb illegal fishing, or create large marine reserves as steps to enhance reputation or self-image. In each example, the feedbacks between individual actors and emergent system properties were altered, triggering a transition from a vicious to a virtuous cycle. We suggest that evaluating conservation tools by their ability to align incentives of actors with broader goals of sustainability is an underused approach that can provide a pathway toward scaling sustainability successes. In short, getting incentives right matters.

show abstract

Section: Economic Incentives and Fishing: Results And Lessons Learnedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Economic Incentives and Fishing: Results And Lessons Learnedmentioning

confidence: 99%

The right incentives enable ocean sustainability successes and provide hope for the future

Lubchenco

Cerny-Chipman

Reimer

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

131

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such trends impose serious challenges for fisheries and fisheries management (e.g. Pinsky and Fogarty, 2012;Pershing et al, 2015). However, temperature interactions with species distributions and behaviors occur not only through trends in temperatures, latitudinal shifts in isotherms, or even in episodic events such as heat waves, but also through shifts in phenology, the timing within temperature seasonal cycles (Asch, 2015;Burrows et al, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal trends and phenology shifts in sea surface temperature on the North American northeastern continental shelf

Thomas

Pershing

Friedland

et al. 2017

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Thomas, AC, et al 2017 Seasonal trends and phenology shifts in sea surface temperature on the North American northeastern continental shelf. Elem Sci Anth, 5: 48, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.240 Introduction Sea surface temperatures (SST) on the North American continental shelf from Cape Hatteras to Nova Scotia (Figure 1) (hereinafter referred to as the northeastern shelf) exhibit one of the strongest warming trends of the global ocean (Burrows et al., 2011;Pershing et al., 2015; Saba et al., 2015), and the region has recently been subjected to a strong heat wave (Mills et al., 2013; Scannell et al., 2016). The warming trend has been implicated in shifts in the distribution of marine species (Lucey and Nye, 2010;Pinsky et al., 2013), many of which are of commercial importance (Nye et al., 2009;Pinsky and Fogarty, 2012), and some of which are invasive species able to exploit new ranges (e.g. Maynard et al., 2016; Stephenson et al., 2009). Such trends impose serious challenges for fisheries and fisheries management (e.g. Pinsky and Fogarty, 2012;Pershing et al., 2015). However, temperature interactions with species distributions and behaviors occur not only through trends in temperatures, latitudinal shifts in isotherms, or even in episodic events such as heat waves, but also through shifts in phenology, the timing within temperature seasonal cycles (Asch, 2015;Burrows et al., 2011). Friedland and Hare (2007) ). Winter (January-April) trends are relatively weak, and even negative in some areas; early summer (May-June) trends are positive everywhere, and later summer (July-September) trends are strongest (~1.0°C decade -1). These seasonal differences shift the phenology of many metrics of the SST cycle. The yearday on which specific temperature thresholds (8° and 12°C) are reached in spring trends earlier, most strongly over the Scotian Shelf and Gulf of Maine (~ -0.5 days year ). Three metrics defining the warmest summer period show significant trends towards earlier summer starts, later summer ends and longer summer duration over the entire study region. Trends in start and end dates are strongest (~1 day year -1 ) over the Gulf of Maine and Scotian Shelf. Trends in increased summer duration are >2.0 days year -1 in parts of the Gulf of Maine. Regression analyses show that phenology trends have regionally varying links to the North Atlantic Oscillation, to local spring and summer atmospheric pressure and air temperature and to Gulf Stream position. For effective monitoring and management of dynamically heterogeneous shelf regions, the results highlight the need to quantify spatial and seasonal differences in SST trends as well as trends in SST phenology, each of which likely has implications for the ecological functioning of the shelf.

show abstract

“…Recent studies have explored periods with very warm SSTs or "ocean heat waves" in the northwest Atlantic (Mills et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2014Chen et al, , 2015, Northern Hemisphere oceans (Scannell et al, 2016), Mediterranean Sea (Black et al, 2004;Olita et al, 2007), off the coast of western Australia (Pearce and Feng, 2013;Wernberg et al, 2013), and over global coastal regions (Lima and Wethey, 2012). Significant negative effects on living marine resources and marine ecosystems were observed during some of these extreme periods (Mills et al, 2013;Wernberg et al, 2013;Pershing et al, 2015;Caputi et al, 2016). Over the 21 st century, changes in extreme SSTs will vary by region due to several factors, including internal climate variability and potential changes in ocean circulation, sea ice, stratification and ocean mixed layer depth (MLD).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected sea surface temperatures over the 21st century: Changes in the mean, variability and extremes for large marine ecosystem regions of Northern Oceans

Alexander

Scott

Friedland

et al. 2018

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

Self Cite

209

191

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Global climate models were used to assess changes in the mean, variability and extreme sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in northern oceans with a focus on large marine ecosystems (LMEs) adjacent to North America, Europe, and the Arctic Ocean. Results were obtained from 26 models in the Community Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) archive and 30 simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research Large Ensemble Community Project (CESM-LENS). All of the simulations used the observed greenhouse gas concentrations for 1976–2005 and the RCP8.5 “business as usual” scenario for greenhouse gases through the remainder of the 21st century. In general, differences between models are substantially larger than among the simulations in the CESM-LENS, indicating that the SST changes are more strongly affected by model formulation than internal climate variability. The annual SST trends over 1976–2099 in the 18 LMEs examined here are all positive ranging from 0.05 to 0.5°C decade–1. SST changes by the end of the 21st century are primarily due to a positive shift in the mean with only modest changes in the variability in most LMEs, resulting in a substantial increase in warm extremes and decrease in cold extremes. The shift in the mean is so large that in many regions SSTs during 2070–2099 will always be warmer than the warmest year during 1976–2005. The SST trends are generally stronger in summer than in winter, as greenhouse gas heating is integrated over a much shallower climatological mixed layer depth in summer than in winter, which amplifies the seasonal cycle of SST over the 21st century. In the Arctic, the mean SST and its variability increases substantially during summer, when it is ice free, but not during winter when a thin layer of ice reforms and SSTs remain near the freezing point.

show abstract

Slow adaptation in the face of rapid warming leads to collapse of the Gulf of Maine cod fishery

Cited by 761 publications

References 35 publications

The right incentives enable ocean sustainability successes and provide hope for the future

The right incentives enable ocean sustainability successes and provide hope for the future

Seasonal trends and phenology shifts in sea surface temperature on the North American northeastern continental shelf

Projected sea surface temperatures over the 21st century: Changes in the mean, variability and extremes for large marine ecosystem regions of Northern Oceans

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About