Recent studies on long‐term changes in the sea

• Published in: Freshwater Biology
• Main Author: CUSHING, D. H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1990
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2427.1990.tb00254.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1365-2427.1990.tb00254.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2427.1990.tb00254.x

SUMMARY. 1. Long‐term changes in the sea have been described in fish stock records, the Californian Cooperative Fisheries program (Calcofi) and in the Continuous Plankton Recorder Program (CPR). Links between the recruitments to fish stocks have been established with temperature and they are coherent across broad areas and in time. 2. In the western North Sea between the fifties and seventies, phytoplankton and zooplankton declined by a factor of 5, to recover in the eighties. This event was linked to strong northerly winds and gales by which the time of onset of production in spring was delayed. Effects on fishes were shown in the oceanic tuna stocks, North Atlantic demersal stocks, Tasmanian lobsters and on the North Sea herring, all consequent on climatic changes.