Poleward bound: adapting to climate-driven species redistribution

Abstract

One of the most pronounced effects of climate change on the world's oceans is the (generally) poleward movement of species and fishery stocks in response to increasing water temperatures. In some regions, such redistributions are already causing dramatic shifts in marine socioecological systems, profoundly altering ecosystem structure and function, challenging domestic and international fisheries, and impacting on human communities. Such effects are expected to become increasingly widespread as waters continue to warm and species ranges continue to shift. Actions taken over the coming decade (2021-2030) can help us adapt to species redistributions and minimise negative impacts on ecosystems and human communities, achieving a more sustainable future in the face of ecosystem change. We describe key drivers related to climate-driven species redistributions that are likely to have a high impact and influence on whether a sustainable future is achievable by 2030. We posit two different futures-a 'business as usual' future and a technically achievable and more sustainable future, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. We then identify concrete actions that provide a

Tracing climate and land-use instability reveals new insights into the future of Earth’s remaining wilderness

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Warming world, changing ocean: mitigation and adaptation to support resilient marine systems

“…Adaptation interventions may also seek to anticipate and adapt to changes such as an arrival and/or increase in abundance of new species (Spijkers and Boonstra 2017 ; Melbourne-Thomas et al 2021 ; Fig. 1 ).…”

“…Outbreaks of disease are more frequent (Tracy et al 2019 ), leading to substantial losses for aquaculture industries (Leung and Bates 2013 ) and local extinctions of wild populations. Range shifts are leading to species loss from ecosystems in some areas, while new arrivals are creating management challenges elsewhere (Melbourne-Thomas et al 2021 ; Spijkers and Boonstra 2017 ; Alexander 2019 ).…”

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“…Extreme climate-driven events, such as droughts, extreme rainfall, floods, and atmospheric and marine heatwaves are predicted to become more frequent and severe (Oliver et al 2019 ), and in many locations increased severity and frequency of extremes is already evident (Cai et al 2015 ; O’Gorman 2015 ; Oliver et al 2017 , 2018 ). These changes in the physical environment will in turn lead to changes in the distribution, abundance and dynamics of marine life (Melbourne-Thomas et al 2021 ; Ward et al 2020 ; Pecl et al 2017 , 2019b and see www.redmap.org.au ), emergence of new habitats (e.g. coral reefs extending polewards in Japanese waters; Kumagai et al 2018 ) and disruption and/or decline of iconic habitat-forming species and ecosystems, such as kelp (Arafeh-Dalmau et al 2019 ), coral reefs (Hughes et al 2017 ) and mangroves (Bergstrom et al 2021 ; Magnan et al 2019 ) in their current locations.…”