CHANGING GREEN OCEAN
FISH MIGRATION, INVASIVE SPECIES, AND EXTREME TEMPERATURE EVENTS OCEAN WARMING IS AFFECTING FISH DISTRIBUTION AND CATCHES WHAT IS CHANGING? Fish and other oceanic organisms are vulnerable to changes in ocean temperature. As temperatures increase, many marine species are migrating to cooler waters, impacting key fish stocks and the stability of marine ecosystems.
OCE CHA
OCEAN WARMING
The rise in ocean temperature is one of the major drivers for migration of marine species to higher latitudes. More subtropical and tropical marine species are replacing temperate water fish, reshaping fisheries and catch compositions.
MOST MARINE SPECIES ARE MOVING DEEPER AND TOWARDS THE POLES
WARM WATER SPECIES ARE SPREADING TO NEW AREAS AND BECOMING INVASIVE WHAT WE OBSERVED
LOSS IN ABUNDANCE AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES THAT CAN’T MIGRATE
SPECIES MIGRATE TOWARDS COLDER WATERS
LATITUDE
OCEAN WARMING
INVASIVE LIONFISH IN THE IONIAN SEA: A significant increase in the temperature of the eastern Mediterranean Sea in 2019 contributed to a northern spread of invasive lionfish, Pterois miles, through the Suez Canal – an invasive migration that had relatively abated in 2018. 40 36
GREATER DEPTH
34 MEDITERRANEAN SEA INCREASE IN ABUNDANCE AND DISTRIBUTION OF MIGRATED SPECIES
SUEZ CANAL
32 2019 1991-2018
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28
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LONGITUDE HIGHER LATITUDES
IMPACTS
Invasive lionfish sightings in the eastern Mediterranean for 1991-2018 are plotted with grey circles, whereas lionfish sightings of the following year (2019) are highlighted in green illustrating the introduction of lionfish further into the Mediterranean and the Ionian Sea.
As a result of climate change, ocean warming is one of the major factors affecting marine species, through migration, causing changing conditions for fisheries with societal and economic implications. The migration of hundreds of species moving to higher latitudes and greater depths with warming has been recorded. These shifts reassemble food webs and can have severe consequences5. 5
Malin L. Pinsky et al., (2020). Climate-Driven Shifts in Marine Species Ranges: Scaling from Organisms to Communities. Annual Review of Marine Science. 12:1, 153-179
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OCEAN STATE REPORT SUMMARY
ISSUE 5