Three decades of increasing fish biodiversity across the northeast Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Gordó-Vilaseca, Francesc, Stephenson, Fabrice, Coll, Marta
• Other Authors: Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España), National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) 2023
• Subjects: Climate warming; Species richness; Biodiversity; Arctic Ocean; Demersal fish; http://metadata.un.org/sdg/14; Conserve and sustainably use the oceans; seas and marine resources for sustainable development; Arctic; Barents Sea; Climate change; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/295737; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2120869120; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033

8 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, supporting information https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2120869120.-- Data, Materials, and Software Availability Previously published data were used for this work (Ove Djupevåg (2021) IMR bottom trawl data 1980 to 2020 https://doi.org/10.21335/NMDC-328259372). All the code and subset of data is available through GitHub (https://github.com/CescGV) Observed range shifts of numerous species support predictions of climate change models that species will shift their distribution northward into the Arctic and sub-Arctic seas due to ocean warming. However, how this is affecting overall species richness is unclear. Here we analyze 20,670 scientific research trawls from the North Sea to the Arctic Ocean collected from 1994 to 2020, including 193 fish species. We found that demersal fish species richness at the local scale has doubled in some Arctic regions, including the Barents Sea, and increased at a lower rate at adjacent regions in the last three decades, followed by an increase in species richness and turnover at a regional scale. These changes in biodiversity correlated with an increase in sea bottom temperature. Within the study area, Arctic species’ probability of occurrence generally declined over time. However, the increase in species from southern latitudes, together with an increase in some Arctic species, ultimately led to an enrichment of the Arctic and sub-Arctic marine fauna due to increasing water temperature consistent with climate change M.C. would like to acknowledge partial funding from the Spanish National Project ProOceans (PID2020-118097RB-I00) and institutional support of the “Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence” accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S). F.S. would like to acknowledge partial funding from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) Coasts & Oceans Research Programme 5 (SCI 2020/21) Peer reviewed