Sea Temperatures Control the Distributions of European Marine Fish
Published:19 Mar.2023 Source:University of Bristol
An analysis extending from southern Portugal to northern Norway highlights the importance of temperature in determining where fish species are found.
By confirming temperature as a key driver of large-scale spatial variation in fish assemblages the study was able to use future climate projections to predict where species will be most common by 2050 and 2100. The results show that overall, the greatest community-level changes are predicted at locations with greater warming, with the most pronounced effects further north -- at higher latitudes.
The study was the first of its kind to use data from fisheries surveys over such a wide area to assess how environmental variation drives species distributions. The study included 198 marine fish species from 23 surveys and 31,502 samples collected by fisheries scientists between 2005 and 2018.
The study was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC] and the UK Government Office for Science.