Open AccessSynchrony of Marine Fish Catches and Climate and Ocean Regime Shifts in the North Pacific Ocean
Author(s) -
Noakes Donald J.,
Beamish Richard J.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
marine and coastal fisheries
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 28
ISSN - 1942-5120
DOI - 10.1577/c08-001.1
Subject(s) - pacific decadal oscillation , pacific ocean , climate change , regime shift , marine fish , geography , population , fishery , oceanography , fish <actinopterygii> , period (music) , environmental science , climatology , biology , ecology , geology , demography , ecosystem , physics , sociology , acoustics
Catches of 19 marine fish species from the eastern and western portions of the North Pacific Ocean during 1970–2004 were examined to determine whether there was synchrony in their responses to the generally accepted climate regime shifts that occurred during that period. Catches for these species represented approximately 55% of the total fish catch in the North Pacific in the 1990s. Five distinct groups were apparent in the data, and each group exhibited a different response to the climate regime shifts of 1977, 1989, and 1998. Some species appeared to have responded only to the regime shift in 1977, others responded only to the shift in 1989, and a few species responded to both. The trends in the time series of catches for these five groups were not random, and shifts in catch generally coincided with regime shifts as identified by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and other indices of climate change. Although this study examined the relationship of fisheries to trends in climate, there is an obvious linkage to the population dynamics of a particular species. Understanding how climate affects these linkages may help improve our ability to reliably forecast population and fishery trends in the future.