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Reconciling fisheries catch and ocean productivity
- Source :
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017.
-
Abstract
- Photosynthesis fuels marine food webs, yet differences in fish catch across globally distributed marine ecosystems far exceed differences in net primary production (NPP). We consider the hypothesis that ecosystem-level variations in pelagic and benthic energy flows from phytoplankton to fish, trophic transfer efficiencies, and fishing effort can quantitatively reconcile this contrast in an energetically consistent manner. To test this hypothesis, we enlist global fish catch data that include previously neglected contributions from small-scale fisheries, a synthesis of global fishing effort, and plankton food web energy flux estimates from a prototype high-resolution global earth system model (ESM). After removing a small number of lightly fished ecosystems, stark interregional differences in fish catch per unit area can be explained (r = 0.79) with an energy-based model that (i) considers dynamic interregional differences in benthic and pelagic energy pathways connecting phytoplankton and fish, (ii) depresses trophic transfer efficiencies in the tropics and, less critically, (iii) associates elevated trophic transfer efficiencies with benthic-predominant systems. Model catch estimates are generally within a factor of 2 of values spanning two orders of magnitude. Climate change projections show that the same macroecological patterns explaining dramatic regional catch differences in the contemporary ocean amplify catch trends, producing changes that may exceed 50% in some regions by the end of the 21st century under high-emissions scenarios. Models failing to resolve these trophodynamic patterns may significantly underestimate regional fisheries catch trends and hinder adaptation to climate change.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Conservation of Natural Resources
Multidisciplinary
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
Fishing
Fisheries
Fishes
Climate change
Pelagic zone
Plankton
01 natural sciences
Food web
Fishery
Food chain
Oceanography
PNAS Plus
Humans
Environmental science
Marine ecosystem
Ecosystem
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Trophic level
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 10916490 and 00278424
- Volume :
- 114
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....8d7506750e78b12a92e03f638f51a017