Species on the move around the Australian coastline: A continental‐scale review of climate‐driven species redistribution in marine systems

Abstract

Climate‐driven changes in the distribution of species are a pervasive and accelerating impact of climate change, and despite increasing research effort in this rapidly emerging field, much remains unknown or poorly understood. We lack a holistic understanding of patterns and processes at local, regional and global scales, with detailed explorations of range shifts in the southern hemisphere particularly under‐represented. Australian waters encompass the world's third largest marine jurisdiction, extending from tropical to sub‐Antarctic climate zones, and have waters warming at rates twice the global average in the north and two to four times in the south. Here, we report the results of a multi‐taxon continent‐wide review describing observed and predicted species redistribution around the Australian coastline, and highlight critical gaps in knowledge impeding our understanding of, and response to, these considerable changes. Since range shifts were first reported in the region in 2003, 198 species from nine Phyla have been documented shifting their distribution, 87.3% of which are shifting poleward. However, there is little standardization of methods or metrics reported in observed or predicted shifts, and both are hindered by a lack of baseline data. Our results demonstrate the importance of historical data sets and underwater visual surveys, and also highlight that approximately one‐fifth of studies incorporated citizen science. These findings emphasize the important role the public has had, and can continue to play, in understanding the impact of climate change. Most documented shifts are of coastal fish species in sub‐tropical and temperate systems, while tropical systems in general were poorly explored. Moreover, most distributional changes are only described at the poleward boundary, with few studies considering changes at the warmer, equatorward range limit. Through identifying knowledge gaps and research limitations, this review highlights future opportunities for strategic research effort to improve the representation of Australian marine species and systems in climate‐impact research.

The status of climate change adaptation in fisheries management: Policy, legislation and implementation

“…org.au) may help to track global changes and detect early warning signs, such as abrupt changes in regional species abundance and distribution or newly emerging species in a specific region (Gervais et al, 2021). In addition, enhanced data availability can improve indicators of ecosystem change due to, for example, climate-induced range shifts of fish populations (Cheung et al, 2010;, as well as species composition and recruitment patterns Karp et al, 2018; see also Section 5.3).…”

Community‐based citizen science projects can support the distributional monitoring of fishes

“…One caveat to the utility of citizen science for fished species is that such programmes are unlikely to provide data that can be used to infer abundance or biomass, which is typically the data needed for formal stock assessments. However, citizen science programmes can contribute occurrence data through time, along with distributional information to delineate new or existing range boundaries (Gervais, Champion & Pecl, 2021). Basic distributional information is crucial for ensuring that stock assessments of fished species cover the entire extent of a stock (Begg, Friedland & Pearce, 1999).…”

“…In marine environments, climate change is affecting fish distributions by enabling range expansions into rapidly warming seas. On the east coast of Australia, for example, increasing ocean temperature and current strength are driving poleward distributional shifts of numerous coral reef fishes (Booth et al, 2007;Feary et al, 2014), as well as other supporting marine organisms (Gervais, Champion & Pecl, 2021). Accounting for temporal changes in fish distributions is, therefore, also essential to ensure appropriate scales of management.…”

Stakeholder perceptions on actions for marine fisheries adaptation to climate change

“…Tasmania is the most southern Australian state; it is an island separated from mainland Australia by Bass Strait and has distinctive and diverse temperate rocky reef marine ecosystems (Cresswell 2000;Edgar et al 2004;Barrett et al 2007;Oliver et al 2016). The climate-driven poleward extension of the warm-water East Australian Current (EAC) over recent decades (Ridgway 2007;Ridgway and Hill 2012), amplified by recent marine heatwave events (Oliver et al 2017;Perkins-Kirkpatrick et al 2019), has led to environmental and ecosystem changes along the Tasmanian coastline (Johnson et al 2011;Last et al 2011;Gervais et al 2021) and recognition of Tasmania as a 'climate hotspot'. Tasmanian commercial fisheries (Box 1) are affected by these changes and are exposed to risks relating to future climate-related impacts.…”