Great Lakes historical commercial fisheries and climate change
- Center for Limnology, Madison, WI (United States)
To identify potential climatic forces in the Great Lakes fish community, we related patterns in the historical fisheries to changes in temperature, water level, and ice cover. The Great Lakes commercial fisheries record is one of the longest biological records, extending back to 1914, or as early as 1867 for some species. We analyzed historical changes in fish community structure based on commercial catches for each of the five Great Lakes. Our approach has been to choose climatic factors which affect fish spawning, growth and survival rates, based on the life history and behaviors of the fishes, to locate shifts in the long-term mean of these climatic factors, and to relate these shifts to changes in the fisheries using time series analyses. Analyses were for single species, thermal guilds, and communities. These climatic shifts may partially explain the dynamics in the composition of the fisheries, such as the timing of changes in dominance or the decline of a thermal guild. The synchrony of a climatic shift with another event, such as an increase in winter temperature with the invasion of an exotic fish, provided evidence that the event may have been facilitated by the climatic shift.
- OSTI ID:
- 95902
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9507129--
- Journal Information:
- Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, Journal Name: Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 76; ISSN BECLAG; ISSN 0012-9623
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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