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Recent warming leads to a rapid borealization of fish communities in the Arctic

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 673–677 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Arctic marine ecosystems are warming twice as fast as the global average1. As a consequence of warming, many incoming species experience increasing abundances and expanding distribution ranges in the Arctic2. The Arctic is expected to have the largest species turnover with regard to invading and locally extinct species, with a modelled invasion intensity of five times the global average3. Studies in this region might therefore give valuable insights into community-wide shifts of species driven by climate warming. We found that the recent warming in the Barents Sea4 has led to a change in spatial distribution of fish communities, with boreal communities expanding northwards at a pace reflecting the local climate velocities5. Increased abundance and distribution areas of large, migratory fish predators explain the observed community-wide distributional shifts. These shifts change the ecological interactions experienced by Arctic fish species. The Arctic shelf fish community retracted northwards to deeper areas bordering the deep polar basin. Depth might limit further retraction of some of the fish species in the Arctic shelf community. We conclude that climate warming is inducing structural change over large spatial scales at high latitudes, leading to a borealization of fish communities in the Arctic.

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Figure 1: Environmental conditions and fish communities in the Barents Sea.
Figure 2: Distributional changes of fish communities from 2004 to 2012.
Figure 3: Changes in fish abundance in the northern Barents Sea (calculated area shown on map).

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Acknowledgements

This is a contribution to the BarEcoRe (Barents Sea ecosystem resilience under global environmental change) project, funded by the Norwegian Research Council (200793/S30). We would like to thank everyone involved in the joint ecosystem surveys at the Institute of Marine Research (IMR), Norway, and Knipovich Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography (PINRO), Russia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Marine Research, 9294 Tromsø, Norway

    Maria Fossheim, Edda Johannesen & Randi B. Ingvaldsen

  2. The Arctic University of Norway, 9037 Tromsø, Norway

    Raul Primicerio & Michaela M. Aschan

  3. Knipovich Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography, 183038 Murmansk, Russia

    Andrey V. Dolgov

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  1. Maria Fossheim
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  2. Raul Primicerio
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  4. Randi B. Ingvaldsen
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  5. Michaela M. Aschan
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  6. Andrey V. Dolgov
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Contributions

M.F., R.P. and E.J. contributed to the formulation of hypotheses and approach. M.F., R.P. and R.B.I. performed the data analysis. All authors participated in writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Maria Fossheim.

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Fossheim, M., Primicerio, R., Johannesen, E. et al. Recent warming leads to a rapid borealization of fish communities in the Arctic. Nature Clim Change 5, 673–677 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2647

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