Decline of cold-water fish species in the Bay of Somme (English Channel, France) in response to ocean warming
Auber, A.; Gohin, F.; Goascoz, N.; Schlaich, I. (2017). Decline of cold-water fish species in the Bay of Somme (English Channel, France) in response to ocean warming. Est., Coast. and Shelf Sci. 189: 189-202. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2017.03.010
In: Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. Academic Press: London; New York. ISSN 0272-7714; e-ISSN 1096-0015, more
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| Authors | | Top |
- Auber, A.
- Gohin, F.
- Goascoz, N.
- Schlaich, I.
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| Abstract |
A growing number of studies have documented increasing dominance of warm-water fish species (“tropicalisation”) in response to ocean warming. Such reorganization of communities is starting to occur in a multitude of local ecosystems, implying that tropicalisation of marine communities could become a global phenomenon. Using 32 years of trawl surveys in the Bay of Somme (English Channel, France), we aimed to investigate the existence of a tropicalisation in the fish community at the local scale of the estuary during the mid-1990s, a period where an exceptional temperature rise occurred in Northeast Atlantic. A long-term response occurred (with a major transition over 6 years) that was characterized by a marked diminution in the abundance of cold-water species in parallel to a temperature rise generated by the ocean-scale phenomenon, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which switched from a cool to a warm phase during the late 1990s. Despite finding no significant increase in the dominance of warm-water species, the long-term diminution of cold-water species suggests that the restructuring of the fish community was mainly influenced by global-scale environmental conditions rather than local ones and that indirect effects may also occurred through biological interactions. |
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