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At first glance, large-scale fisheries may seem adaptable to climate change. Adaptation takes place from the governance to the individual level of fishers. At the individual level, skippers make day-to-day decisions on where to fish and are at the forefront of the response to changes at sea. We seek to understand such individual adaptation in large-scale fisheries, using the case of the Spanish tropical tuna fishery. We surveyed 22% of Spanish freezer purse seine skippers operating in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. In the last 10 years, more than half of skippers used new technology to search for tunas and expanded their fishing area as adaptation actions. Using cluster analysis, we identified two skipper groups—based on stated behaviours to confront different hypothetical scenarios of catch decline—that would follow adaptation or transformation strategies. The majority of skippers would follow adaptation strategies until a hypothetical 30% catch decrease and then choices diverge. Skipper characteristics, such as importance given to intergenerational knowledge, perceptions of change in tropical tuna abundance, and years working in the current job, can explain the adaptation and transformation choices. These findings help understand the potential for adaptation behaviour by skippers involved in fisheries confronting catch declines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change impacts on ocean living organisms and ecosystems have flow-on effects on fisheries and their associated values. Industrial fisheries operate long distance fleets that potentially have the capacity to respond to such impacts by using technology and changing the timing and distribution of fishing effort. However, long-term adaptation to climate change in industrial fisheries entails larger structural changes that include adaptive management and international cooperation, where actors beyond the industry need to be engaged. How industrial fisheries are tackling adaptation to climate change is largely unknown, as is the role that actors in these systems undertake. In this study, we explored the Basque tropical tuna fishery to understand past and projected adaptation actions by each of the main actors in the fishery. We performed in-depth interviews with high-level representatives from 65% of the fishing industry, governments, research bodies, and non-governmental organizations of the Basque tropical tuna freezer purse seine fishery operating in the central-eastern Atlantic Ocean. We found that the fishery system has engaged in adaptation actions that seek to improve fishery sustainability, and that most adaptation actions are undertaken by the fishing industry. We also found that actors promote several types of adaptation actions such as practice change, and capacity building, among others, and that there is a lack of joint adaptation planning. We discuss the challenge in identifying suitable adaptation options to promote resilient and sustainable fisheries and to avoid losing their associated values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is broad evidence of climate change causing shifts in fish distribution worldwide, but less is known about the response of fisheries to these changes. Responses to climate‐driven shifts in a fishery may be constrained by existing management or institutional arrangements and technological settings. In order to understand how fisheries are responding to ocean warming, we investigate purse seine fleets targeting tropical tunas in the east Atlantic Ocean using effort and sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) data from 1991 to 2017. An analysis of the spatial change in effort using a centre of gravity approach and empirical orthogonal functions is used to assess the spatiotemporal changes in effort anomalies and investigate links to SSTA. Both analyses indicate that effort shifts southward from the equator, while no clear pattern is seen northward from the equator. Random forest models show that while technology and institutional settings better explain total effort, SSTA is playing a role when explaining the spatiotemporal changes of effort, together with management and international agreements. These results show the potential of management to minimize the impacts of climate change on fisheries activity. Our results provide guidance for improved understanding about how climate, management and governance interact in tropical tuna fisheries, with methods that are replicable and transferable. Future actions should take into account all these elements in order to plan successful adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]