Environmental Control on the Productivity of a Heavily Fished Ecosystem

Abstract

Sustainable fisheries management requires an understanding of the links between environmental conditions and fish stock populations, especially in the context of climate change. From this perspective, identifying phases where ocean climate fluctuations and changes in ecosystem productivity coincide could provide a powerful tool to help inform fisheries management. Using more than 70 years of climate and fisheries data, this study shows that the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) ecosystem productivity, from primary producers to piscivorous fish, changes in relative synchronicity with the climate of the northern hemisphere over decadal time scales. Such correspondence between the climate and lower and higher trophic levels has not been achieved previously in the Northwest Atlantic in the context of fisheries. This work advances ideas for incorporating environmental knowledge into fisheries management on the NL shelves, or in other regions facing similar dynamics.