Ecological forecasting under climate change: the case of Baltic cod

Proc Biol Sci. 2010 Jul 22;277(1691):2121-30. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0353. Epub 2010 Mar 17.

Abstract

Good decision making for fisheries and marine ecosystems requires a capacity to anticipate the consequences of management under different scenarios of climate change. The necessary ecological forecasting calls for ecosystem-based models capable of integrating multiple drivers across trophic levels and properly including uncertainty. The methodology presented here assesses the combined impacts of climate and fishing on marine food-web dynamics and provides estimates of the confidence envelope of the forecasts. It is applied to cod (Gadus morhua) in the Baltic Sea, which is vulnerable to climate-related decline in salinity owing to both direct and indirect effects (i.e. through species interactions) on early-life survival. A stochastic food web-model driven by regional climate scenarios is used to produce quantitative forecasts of cod dynamics in the twenty-first century. The forecasts show how exploitation would have to be adjusted in order to achieve sustainable management under different climate scenarios.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Baltic States
  • Climate Change*
  • Conservation of Natural Resources / methods
  • Fisheries / methods*
  • Food Chain*
  • Forecasting / methods
  • Gadus morhua / growth & development*
  • Models, Biological*
  • Oceans and Seas
  • Population Dynamics
  • Risk Assessment