Anticipated changes in climate will push West Coast marine species from sharks to salmon northward an average of 30 kilometers per decade, shaking up fish communities and shifting fishing grounds, according to a new study published in Progress in Oceanography.
The study suggests that shifting species will likely move into the habitats of other marine life to the north, especially in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea. Some will simultaneously disappear from areas at the southern end of their ranges, especially off Oregon and California.
"As the climate warms, the species will follow the conditions they're adapted to," said Richard Brodeur, a NOAA Fisheries senior scientist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center's Newport Research Station and coauthor of the study. "We're going to see more interactions between species and there will be winners and losers that we cannot foresee."
The study, led by William Cheung of the University of British Columbia, estimated changes in the distribution of 28 near-surface fish species commonly collected by research surveys in the northeast Pacific Ocean. The researchers used established global climate models to project how the distribution of the fish would shift by 2050 as greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere and, in turn, the ocean surface.
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