Biological communities in San Francisco Bay track large‐scale climate forcing over the North Pacific

Cloern, James E.; Hieb, Kathryn A.; Jacobson, Teresa; Sansó, Bruno; Lorenzo, Emanuele Di; Stacey, Mark T.; Largier, John L.; Meiring, Wendy; Peterson, William T.; Powell, Thomas M.; Winder, Monika; Jassby, Alan D.

doi:10.1029/2010gl044774

Cited by 97 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The covariability between the NPGO and the principal modes of spatial variability in coho and Chinook salmon survival rates is a previously unidentified link between low-frequency Pacific climate variability and salmon. This finding is consistent with the relative increase in NPGO-type variability of the Pacific Ocean since the late 1980s and with coherent fluctuations of fish and invertebrates along the North American west coast that covary with the NPGO signal (27,28). Recent studies link the increasing variance of the NPO-the atmospheric driver of the NPGO-to greenhouse forcing (29).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Changing central Pacific El Niños reduce stability of North American salmon survival rates

Kilduff

Lorenzo

Botsford

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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118

126

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Pacific salmon are a dominant component of the northeast Pacific ecosystem. Their status is of concern because salmon abundance is highly variable-including protected stocks, a recently closed fishery, and actively managed fisheries that provide substantial ecosystem services. Variable ocean conditions, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), have influenced these fisheries, while diminished diversity of freshwater habitats have increased variability via the portfolio effect. We address the question of how recent changes in ocean conditions will affect populations of two salmon species. Since the 1980s, El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events have been more frequently associated with central tropical Pacific warming (CPW) rather than the canonical eastern Pacific warming ENSO (EPW). CPW is linked to the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO), whereas EPW is linked to the PDO, different indicators of northeast Pacific Ocean ecosystem productivity. Here we show that both coho and Chinook salmon survival rates along western North America indicate that the NPGO, rather than the PDO, explains salmon survival since the 1980s. The observed increase in NPGO variance in recent decades was accompanied by an increase in coherence of local survival rates of these two species, increasing salmon variability via the portfolio effect. Such increases in coherence among salmon stocks are usually attributed to controllable freshwater influences such as hatcheries and habitat degradation, but the unknown mechanism underlying the ocean climate effect identified here is not directly subject to management actions.salmon | synchrony | persistence |

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Changing central Pacific El Niños reduce stability of North American salmon survival rates

Kilduff

Lorenzo

Botsford

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

118

126

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“…These findings have implications for some empirical relationships such as the NAO and the Atlantic cod (Brander 2005), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the ecosystem state of the North Pacific (Hare & Mantua 2000), the Atlantic Subarctic index and the ecosystem state in the North-east Atlantic (Hatun et al 2009), and the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO) and the ecosystem state in San Francisco Bay (Cloern et al 2010). Will all these interesting and currently robust empirical relationships hold in a warmer world?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unanticipated biological changes and global warming

Beaugrand¹

2012

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Evidence of global warming is now unequivocal, and studies suggest that it has started to influence natural systems of the planet, including the oceans. However, in the marine environment, it is well-known that species and ecosystems can also be influenced by natural sources of large-scale hydro-climatological variability. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) was negatively correlated with the mean abundance of one of the subarctic key species Calanus finmarchicus in the North Sea. This correlation was thought to have broken down in 1996, however, the timing has never been tested statistically. The present study revisits this un anticipated change and reveals that the correlation did not break down in 1996 as originally proposed but earlier, at the time of an abrupt ecosystem shift in the North Sea in the 1980s. Furthermore, the analyses demonstrate that the correlation between the NAO and C. finmarchicus abundance is modulated by the thermal regime of the North Sea, which in turn covaries positively with global temperature anomalies. This study thereby provides evidence that global climate change is likely to alter some empirical relationships found in the past between species abundance or the ecosystem state and large-scale natural sources of hydro-climatological variability. A theory is proposed to explain how this might happen. These unanticipated changes, also called 'surprises' in climatic research, are a direct consequence of the complexity of both climatic and biological systems. In this period of rapid climate change, it is therefore hazardous to integrate meteo-oceanic indices such as the NAO in models used in the management of living resources, as it has been sometimes attempted in the past.

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“…These ecosystems, with the exception of the North Sea, were however not analysed in this study. These widespread changes have been attributed to changes in circulation and temperature associated to the strength of the subpolar gyres [54,79] and to global-scale changes in temperature at the end of the 1990s [19].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synchronous marine pelagic regime shifts in the Northern Hemisphere

Beaugrand

Conversi

Chiba

et al. 2015

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Regime shifts are characterized by sudden, substantial and temporally persistent changes in the state of an ecosystem. They involve major biological modifications and often have important implications for exploited living resources. In this study, we examine whether regime shifts observed in 11 marine systems from two oceans and three regional seas in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) are synchronous, applying the same methodology to all. We primarily infer marine pelagic regime shifts from abrupt shifts in zooplankton assemblages, with the exception of the East Pacific where ecosystem changes are inferred from fish. Our analyses provide evidence for quasi-synchronicity of marine pelagic regime shifts both within and between ocean basins, although these shifts lie embedded within considerable regional variability at both year-to-year and lower-frequency time scales. In particular, a regime shift was detected in the late 1980s in many studied marine regions, although the exact year of the observed shift varied somewhat from one basin to another. Another regime shift was also identified in the mid- to late 1970s but concerned less marine regions. We subsequently analyse the main biological signals in relation to changes in NH temperature and pressure anomalies. The results suggest that the main factor synchronizing regime shifts on large scales is NH temperature; however, changes in atmospheric circulation also appear important. We propose that this quasi-synchronous shift could represent the variably lagged biological response in each ecosystem to a large-scale, NH change of the climatic system, involving both an increase in NH temperature and a strongly positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation. Further investigation is needed to determine the relative roles of changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure patterns and their resultant teleconnections in synchronizing regime shifts at large scales.

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Biological communities in San Francisco Bay track large‐scale climate forcing over the North Pacific

Cited by 97 publications

References 28 publications

Changing central Pacific El Niños reduce stability of North American salmon survival rates

Changing central Pacific El Niños reduce stability of North American salmon survival rates

Unanticipated biological changes and global warming

Synchronous marine pelagic regime shifts in the Northern Hemisphere

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