Detecting temporal trends and environmentally-driven changes in the spatial distribution of bottom fishes and crabs on the eastern Bering Sea shelf

Kotwicki, Stan; Lauth, Robert Russell

doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2013.03.017

Cited by 83 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Regarding the Eastern Bering Sea case‐study presented here, results are consistent with prior analyses of this system in several important ways. First off, results show substantial variability in northward trends in COG for demersal species in the Eastern Bering Sea (see Supporting Information Figure S1), including instances where species are moving southward, or where a northward shift in distribution either is or is not predicted by a positive response to increasing regional temperatures (Mueter & Litzow, ) or decreasing cold pool area (Kotwicki & Lauth, ). Unlike previous analyses, however, the VAST model explored here estimates autocorrelated variability in spatio‐temporal patterns in population density ( ρ n and ρ w in Table ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forecast skill for predicting distribution shifts: A retrospective experiment for marine fishes in the Eastern Bering Sea

Thorson

2018

Fish and Fisheries

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Forecasting distribution shifts under novel environmental conditions is a major task for ecologists and conservationists. Researchers forecast distribution shifts using several tools including: predicting from an empirical relationship between a summary of distribution (population centroid) and annual time series (“annual regression,” AR); or fitting a habitat‐envelope model to historical distribution and forecasting given predictions of future environmental conditions (“habitat envelope,” HE). However, surprisingly little research has estimated forecast skill by fitting to historical data, forecasting distribution shifts and comparing forecasts with subsequent observations of distribution shifts. I demonstrate the important role of retrospective skill testing by forecasting poleward movement over 1‐, 2‐ or 3‐year periods for 20 fish and crab species in the Eastern Bering Sea and comparing forecasts with observed shifts. I specifically introduce an alternative vector‐autoregressive spatio‐temporal (VAST) forecasting model, which can include species temperature responses, and compare skill for AR, HE and VAST forecasts. Results show that the HE forecast has 30%–43% greater variance than predicting that future distribution is identical to the estimated distribution in the final year (a “persistence” forecast). Meanwhile, the AR explains 2%–6% and VAST explains 8%–25% of variance in poleward movement, and both have better performance than a persistence forecast. HE and AR both generate forecast intervals that are too narrow, while VAST models with or without temperature have appropriate width for forecast intervals. Retrospective skill testing for more regions and taxa should be used as a test bed to guide future improvements in methods for forecasting distribution shifts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forecast skill for predicting distribution shifts: A retrospective experiment for marine fishes in the Eastern Bering Sea

Thorson

2018

Fish and Fisheries

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“…Red lines show the linear relationship and * represents a significant longitudinal temperature gradient (p < 0.05). Particularly, in the eastern Bering Sea, temperature has been reported to be a less important factor in distribution shifts than temporal (Kotwicki & Lauth, 2013) and unexplained variability (Thorson, Ianelli, & Kotwicki, 2017). No single factors can explain all.…”

Section: Multiple Mechanisms Of Temperature Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subregional differences in groundfish distributional responses to anomalous ocean bottom temperatures in the northeast Pacific

Hollowed

Cokelet

et al. 2019

Global Change Biology

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Although climate‐induced shifts in fish distribution have been widely reported at the population level, studies that account for ontogenetic shifts and subregional differences when assessing responses are rare.In this study, groundfish distributional changes in depth, latitude, and longitude were assessed at different size classes by species within nine subregions. We examined large, quality‐controlled datasets of depth‐stratified‐random bottom trawl surveys conducted during summer in three large regions—the Gulf of Alaska and the west coasts of Canada and the United States—over the period 1996–2015, a time period punctuated by a marine “heat wave.” Temporal biases in bottom temperature were minimized by subdividing each region into three subregions, each with short‐duration surveys. Near‐bottom temperatures, weighted by stratum area, were unsynchronized across subregions and exhibited varying subregional interannual variability. The weighted mean bottom depths in the subregions also vary largely among subregions. The centroids (centers of gravity) of groundfish distribution were weighted with catch per unit effort and stratum area for 10 commercially important groundfish species by size class and subregion. Our multivariate analyses showed that there were significant differences in aggregate fish movement responses to warm temperatures across subregions but not among species or sizes. Groundfish demonstrated poleward responses to warming temperatures only in a few subregions and moved shallower or deeper to seek colder waters. The temperature responses of groundfish depended on where they were. Under global warming, groundfish may form geographically distinct thermal ecoregions along the northeast Pacific shelf. Shallow‐depth species exhibited greatly different distributional responses to temperature changes across subregions while deep‐depth species of different subregions tend to have relatively similar temperature responses. Future climate studies would benefit by considering fish distributions on small subregional scales.

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“…Less common is the integration of biotic variables into habitat studies, although it could be the key to understanding the ecological relationships necessary for effective ecosystem-based fisheries management (Johnson et al 2013). Temperature has often been cited as the key abiotic factor driving fish distributions in the EBS over the past three decades: a general northward shift in distribution in some EBS groundfish species corresponded with the decreasing areal extent of the cold pool (Kotwicki and Lauth 2013); the distributions of flathead sole (Hippoglossoides elassodon) and rock sole (Lepidopsetta spp.) extended further north in the EBS during the years when bottom temperature was the warmest (Spencer 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat and infauna prey availability for flatfishes in the northern Bering Sea

Yeung

Yang

2014

Polar Biol

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Yellowfin sole (Limanda aspera), northern rock sole (Lepidopsetta polyxystra), and Alaska plaice (Pleuronectes quadrituberculatus) are valuable flatfishes in the southeastern Bering Sea (EBS) bottom trawl fishery. The northern Bering Sea (NBS) is near their northern distribution limit. We conducted the first assessment of NBS habitat suitability for these benthivorous flatfishes from the perspective of prey availability in 2010. Benthic samples were collected at 12 trawl stations along a meridional transect extending from 60.5°N to 64.5°N east of St. Lawrence Island to characterize the prey environment. Stomach contents from the flatfishes were concomitantly collected to relate diets to prey fields. The diet compositions did not correspond spatially with the infauna communities. The flatfishes elected a prey group regardless of its relative availability. The spatial mismatch between diet and infauna compositions suggests that prey availability was high in the NBS. The flatfishes generally have versatile diets, but they were more selective of their prey here than in the EBS. The biomass and the abundance of the infauna along the transect were comparable with the EBS. Although niche overlap was high in the NBS, competition for food was likely lower than in the EBS because of the lower density of flatfish. The bottom temperatures in the NBS were in the same range as the EBS during the summer of 2010. The NBS appears to be suitable flatfish habitat at least during the summer ice-free period. The effects of climate warming on the prey environment and on the production and distribution of flatfish are complex and difficult to predict, but if the NBS were to shift over time toward milder winter conditions that more resemble the EBS, its suitability as flatfish habitat would presumably increase based on the present prey availability.

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Detecting temporal trends and environmentally-driven changes in the spatial distribution of bottom fishes and crabs on the eastern Bering Sea shelf

Cited by 83 publications

References 35 publications

Forecast skill for predicting distribution shifts: A retrospective experiment for marine fishes in the Eastern Bering Sea

Forecast skill for predicting distribution shifts: A retrospective experiment for marine fishes in the Eastern Bering Sea

Subregional differences in groundfish distributional responses to anomalous ocean bottom temperatures in the northeast Pacific

Habitat and infauna prey availability for flatfishes in the northern Bering Sea

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