Lessons from the First Generation of Marine Ecological Forecast Products

Abstract

Recent years have seen a rapid expansion in the ability of earth system models to describe and predict the physical state of the ocean. Skilful forecasts ranging from seasonal (3 months) to decadal (5-10 years) time scales are now a reality. With the advance of these forecasts of ocean physics, the first generation of marine ecological forecasts has started to emerge. Such forecasts are potentially of great value in the management of living marine resources and for all of those who are dependent on the ocean for both nutrition and their livelihood; however, this is still a field in its infancy. We review the state of the art in this emerging field and identify the lessons that can be learnt and carried forward from these pioneering efforts. The majority of this first wave of products are forecasts of spatial distributions, possibly reflecting the inherent suitability of this response variable to the task of forecasting. Promising developments are also seen in forecasting fish-stock recruitment where, despite well-recognized challenges in understanding and predicting this response, new process knowledge and model approaches that could form a basis for forecasting are becoming available. Forecasts of phenology and coral-bleaching events are also being applied to monitoring and industry decisions. Moving marine ecological forecasting forward will require striking a balance between what is feasible and what is useful. We propose here a set of criteria to quickly identify "low-hanging fruit" that can potentially be predicted; however, ensuring the usefulness of forecast products also requires close collaboration with actively engaged end-users. Realizing the full potential of marine ecological forecasting will require bridging the gaps between marine ecology and climatology on the one-hand, and between science and end-users on the other. Nevertheless, the successes seen thus far and the potential to develop further products suggest that the field of marine ecological forecasting can be expected to flourish in the coming years.

It’s about time: A synthesis of changing phenology in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem

“…Several forecasts of phenological events have been developed (Payne et al, ), including one in the GoM of the threshold conditions and timing of when the Maine lobster fishery can be expected to shift into its high landings summer mode (Mills, Pershing, & Hernández, ). This model uses buoy‐based temperature observations and historical fishery data to forecast the timing of the uptick in fishery landings 3–4 months in advance (Mills et al, ).…”

Spatio‐temporal models of intermediate complexity for ecosystem assessments: A new tool for spatial fisheries management

“…For visual clarity, we do not show simulated density for the two species that are not then included in the estimation model for each simulation replicate Table 2 for true values). >10 years) will require including incorporating physiological and other mechanistic processes (Hollowed et al, 2009;Payne et al, 2017); we recommend future research to explore including density covariates representing changes in thermal niche, as well as the effect of regional oceanographic variables (Thorson, 2019) within MICE-in-space models. As such, future short-term forecasts and long-term projections of many fish stocks will likely require models that include climate-driven changes to spatial distributions and species interactions (Deyle, May, Munch, & Sugihara, 2016;Hobday, Cochrane, et al, 2016b;Hobday et al, 2018;.…”

A Framework for Combining Seasonal Forecasts and Climate Projections to Aid Risk Management for Fisheries and Aquaculture

“…Thus, any decisions made on the basis of climate forecasts available today may need to be revisited with revised forecasts over the coming years, as predictive skill improves. While we have considered just a single set of climate projections and a single variable (SST), other studies show that the uncertainty of climate scale forecasts can be relatively large, and this uncertainty increases further into the future (Payne et al, 2017). Thus, a business may need to deal with the case where the upper temperature threshold for their species/situation is expected to be permanently exceeded anywhere from, say, 2040 to 2060.…”

“…In this regard, we define climate-proofing as the development of strategies that can equip businesses with skills or information to manage or reduce the risk from climate change. This approach builds on recent development and application of seasonal forecasting tools, which represent one risk-based approach used by the marine resource sector to manage future uncertainty (Battaglene et al, 2008;Hobday et al, 2016;Payne et al, 2017).…”