Changing Ocean Research Unit, Fisheries Centre, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.
Nature. 2013 May 16;497(7449):365-8. doi: 10.1038/nature12156.
Marine fishes and invertebrates respond to ocean warming through distribution shifts, generally to higher latitudes and deeper waters. Consequently, fisheries should be affected by 'tropicalization' of catch (increasing dominance of warm-water species). However, a signature of such climate-change effects on global fisheries catch has so far not been detected. Here we report such an index, the mean temperature of the catch (MTC), that is calculated from the average inferred temperature preference of exploited species weighted by their annual catch. Our results show that, after accounting for the effects of fishing and large-scale oceanographic variability, global MTC increased at a rate of 0.19 degrees Celsius per decade between 1970 and 2006, and non-tropical MTC increased at a rate of 0.23 degrees Celsius per decade. In tropical areas, MTC increased initially because of the reduction in the proportion of subtropical species catches, but subsequently stabilized as scope for further tropicalization of communities became limited. Changes in MTC in 52 large marine ecosystems, covering the majority of the world's coastal and shelf areas, are significantly and positively related to regional changes in sea surface temperature. This study shows that ocean warming has already affected global fisheries in the past four decades, highlighting the immediate need to develop adaptation plans to minimize the effect of such warming on the economy and food security of coastal communities, particularly in tropical regions.
海洋鱼类和无脊椎动物通过分布转移来应对海洋变暖，通常向更高的纬度和更深的水域转移。因此，渔业应该受到“热带化”（暖水物种的主导地位增加）的影响。然而，到目前为止，还没有检测到这种气候变化对全球渔业捕捞的影响的特征。在这里，我们报告了这样一个指数，即捕捞物的平均温度（MTC），它是根据捕捞物种的平均推断温度偏好，根据它们的年捕捞量加权计算得出的。我们的研究结果表明，在考虑到捕捞和大规模海洋变异性的影响后，全球 MTC 在 1970 年至 2006 年间以每十年 0.19 摄氏度的速度增加，非热带 MTC 以每十年 0.23 摄氏度的速度增加。在热带地区，由于亚热带物种捕捞量的比例减少，MTC 最初有所增加，但随后由于社区进一步热带化的范围有限而稳定下来。52 个大型海洋生态系统的 MTC 变化，涵盖了世界上大部分沿海和大陆架地区，与区域海表温度变化显著正相关。这项研究表明，海洋变暖在过去四十年中已经影响了全球渔业，这凸显了立即制定适应计划的必要性，以尽量减少这种变暖对沿海社区经济和粮食安全的影响，特别是在热带地区。
