Mr Francesc Vilaseca1, Fabrice Stephenson1, Marta Coll1, Mark Costello1
1Faculty of Biosciences and Aquaculture, Nord Universitet, Bodø, Norway
Range shifts of marine species are one of the most common responses to climate warming. In the Arctic, one of the oceanic regions warming fastest on earth, these shifts lead to a borealisation of the community in recent years, inducing changes in the food web structure and an enrichment of the ecosystem functionality. However, the factors that determine the magnitude and direction of species shifts remain unclear, and how these changes affect the ecosystem functioning and biodiversity of Arctic and subarctic ecosystems has been rarely studied. We used standardised scientific research trawl surveys from the North Sea to the Arctic Ocean collected from 1995 to 2020 and including >50 fish species. We investigated how changes in the fish community affected the overall fish productivity in the area, and identified the individual species response from the increase in water temperature observed in the last decades. Our results suggest an overall increase in species richness and fish biomass parallel to the increase in sea bottom temperature in the area, mainly driven by increasing abundance of boreal and temperate species over years, and several but not all Arctic species declining.
Presentation Slides – Francesc Gordo-Vilaseca
