Seafood supply altered by climate change
The global supply of seafood is set to change substantially and many people will not be able to enjoy the same quantity and dishes in the future due to climate change and ocean acidification, according to UBC scientists.
These findings were released today in Japan by the NF-UBC Nereus Program, an international research team led by UBC scientists and supported by the Nippon Foundation. The Nereus Program was formed to study the future of the world’s oceans and seafood resources. Today it released a summary of the first phase of its research in a report titled ‘Predicting Future Ocean.’ Researchers say that the future supply of seafood will be substantially altered by climate change, overfishing and other human activities.
“The types of fish that we will have on our dinner table will be very different in the future,” said William Cheung, UBC associate professor and the co-director of the Nereus Program. “Fisheries will be catching more warm-water species, with smaller size, and that will affect fish supply through our domestic and oversea fisheries as well as imports.”
The report highlighted climate change, ocean acidification, overfishing and destruction of marine ecosystems as the primary drivers of ocean change. Researchers say these changes will lead to a decline in fisheries in many regions and alter marine biodiversity and food web structures.
Researchers say there are solutions to help the ocean and communities prepare for the future. These include improving ocean governance globally to ensure sustainable fisheries and the need to limit carbon dioxide emissions.
“Global marine ecosystems have already been largely altered by overfishing,” said Daniel Pauly, professor at UBC and an advisor to Nereus. “This report clearly points out that any solution needs to deal with the CO2 problem as well.”
BACKGROUND
The Nereus Program
The Nippon Foundation committed $12.25 million US in 2010 to UBC to establish NF-UBC Nereus – Predicting the Future Ocean, a nine-year interdisciplinary research project that was created to further knowledge of how best to attain sustainability for our world’s oceans. In addition to the Nippon Foundation and UBC, the Program is comprised of several other partner institutions, including the University of Cambridge, Duke University, Princeton University, Stockholm University, United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre and Utrecht University.
www.nereusprogram.org
Funding for the Nereus program forms part of UBC’s start an evolution campaign, the most ambitious fundraising and alumni engagement campaign in Canadian history.
Tags: Climate change, Daniel Pauly, Faculty, fisheries management, Nereus Program, Overfishing, William Cheung
Fish will have to find new habitats or perish if global warming is left unchecked
Climate change is forcing fish out of their current habitats and into cooler waters and many more species will soon be affected if climate goals are not met, say scientists.
An international team of researchers compared the future of the oceans under two climate change scenarios. In one scenario, we limit atmospheric warming to two degrees by 2100, as outlined by the Copenhagen accord. In the other, we continue with the current approach, which researchers say would cause a five-degree increase in atmospheric temperatures. They say if warming continues unchecked, fish will migrate away from their current habitats 65 per cent faster, resulting in changes to biodiversity and ecosystem functions.
The new research, published today in Science, points to the need to limit emissions to help reduce the impact of rising atmospheric temperatures and acidifying oceans. The findings are intended to inform discussions at the upcoming 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.
“All the species and services we get from the ocean will be impacted and everyone, including Canadians, who benefit from these goods and services are vulnerable,” said William Cheung, associate professor in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, and co-director of the NF-UBC Nereus Program. “On a positive note, we still have options to substantially reduce these impacts now but the longer we wait the fewer and fewer options we have.”
This study was completed by the Oceans 2015 Initiative, an international team of researchers from Europe, Australia, the U.S., and Canada. Cheung and his colleague Rashid Sumaila, co-authors of the study, examined how climate change will impact fisheries and the many coastal communities that depend heavily on fisheries resources for food and economic security.
“From looking at the surface of the ocean, you can’t tell much is changing,” said Sumaila, professor in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and director of UBC’s Fisheries Economics Research Unit (FERU). “The oceans are closely tied to human systems and we’re putting communities at high risk.”
The researchers suggest taking action to protect marine ecosystems and to help communities adapt by providing education and training opportunities to diversify livelihood options. They also say it’s important to make every effort now to limit emissions.
“While some regions will see increases in some fish biomass, these gains may be only temporary if carbon dioxide emissions continues,” said Sumaila.
Tags: Climate change, Faculty, FERU, Nereus Program, Rashid Sumaila, William Cheung
Global trends show seabird populations dropped 70 per cent since 1950s
UBC research shows world’s monitored seabird populations have dropped 70 per cent since the 1950s, a stark indication that marine ecosystems are not doing well.
Michelle Paleczny, a UBC master’s student and researcher with the Sea Around Us project, and co-authors compiled information on more than 500 seabird populations from around the world, representing 19 per cent of the global seabird population. They found overall populations had declined by 69.6 per cent, equivalent to a loss of about 230 million birds in 60 years.
“Seabirds are particularly good indicators of the health of marine ecosystems,” said Paleczny. ”When we see this magnitude of seabird decline, we can see there is something wrong with marine ecosystems. It gives us an idea of the overall impact we’re having.”
The dramatic decline is caused by a variety of factors including overfishing of the fish seabirds rely on for food, birds getting tangled in fishing gear, plastic and oil pollution, introduction of non-native predators to seabird colonies, destruction and changes to seabird habitat, and environmental and ecological changes caused by climate change.
Seabirds tend to travel the world’s oceans foraging for food over their long lifetimes, and return to the same colonies to breed. Colony population numbers provide information to scientists about the health of the oceans the birds call home.
Albatross, an iconic marine bird that lives for several decades, were part of the study and showed substantial declines. Paleczny says these birds live so long and range so far that they encounter many dangers in their travels. A major threat to albatross is getting caught on longline fishing hooks and drowning, a problem that kills hundreds of thousands of seabirds every year.
“Our work demonstrates the strong need for increased seabird conservation effort internationally,” said Paleczny. “Loss of seabirds causes a variety of impacts in coastal and marine ecosystems”
Seabirds play an important role in those ecosystems. They eat and are eaten by a variety of other marine species. They also transport nutrients in their waste back to the coastal ecosystems in which they breed, helping to fertilize entire food webs.
The study, published in PLOS ONE, is the first to estimate overall change in available global seabird population data. It is a collaboration between UBC researchers Paleczny, Vasiliki Karpouzi and Daniel Pauly and Edd Hammill, a lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney in Australia.
Tags: Daniel Pauly, Faculty, IOF students, Marine ecosystems, Overfishing, Sea Around Us, seabirds
New data on reported and unreported marine catches now available online
Researchers with UBC’s Sea Around Us project have launched a new web platform at www.seaaroundus.org that provides the first comprehensive coverage of both reported and unreported fish caught by every country in the world.
It reveals that official catch reports considerably underestimate actual catches around the world. For example, researchers found there was considerable unreported foreign fishing between 1950 and the early 1970s on Canada’s East coast. In fact, more than half of fish caught were unreported at one point. Much of this ‘catch’ consisted of so-called discards.
UBC professor Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller plan to publish a global estimate of fisheries catch in a peer-reviewed paper.
“The new Sea Around Us data have significant global scope and are long awaited by many groups worldwide,” said Zeller, senior researcher and project manager for Sea Around Us. “Accurate estimates are important for policy makers and fisheries managers to make economical and sustainable decisions about our fishing policies and fisheries management.”
The new data combines estimates of unreported catches — determined through extensive literature searches, consultation with local experts, and calculation of discarded fish — with officially reported data for small and large-scale fisheries for every country. The data emerged from a decade-long catch reconstruction project.
“We know these data will have major global impacts and now they are accessible in a visual, simplified and comprehensive way,” Pauly said.
Accurate catch data provide important insights into fisheries, fish populations and underlying ecosystems, and such data can have economic impacts.
The Sea Around Us is currently funded by The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. This is the first time the project has released new data in over five years. It can be accessed at www.seaaroundus.org
BACKGROUND
About UBC’S Sea Around Us
The Sea Around Us was initiated in 1999, and aims to provide integrated analyses of the impacts of fisheries on marine ecosystems, and to devise policies that can mitigate and reverse harmful trends while ensuring the social and economic benefits of sustainable fisheries. Sea Around Us has assembled global databases of catches, distributions of fished marine species, countries’ fishing access agreements, ex-vessel prices, marine protected areas and other data – all available online.
Sea Around Us is a long-standing collaboration between the University of British Columbia and The Pew Charitable Trusts, and since 2014 is supported by The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
About The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation
Founded in 1988, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation is dedicated to transforming lives and strengthening communities by fostering innovation, creating knowledge and promoting social progress. The Sea Around Us program is another example of how the Foundation supports the use data and technology to inform conservation priorities and actions. For more information, go to pgafamilyfoundation.org
Tags: Daniel Pauly, Dirk Zeller, Faculty, fisheries management, Marine catches, Sea Around Us
Yentsch-Schindler Early Career Award (ASLO)
Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography
Award in honor of early career scientists. The Yentsch-Schindler Early Career Award honors an aquatic scientist normally within 12 years of the completion of their terminal degree, for outstanding and balanced contributions to research, science training, and broader societal issues such as resource management, conservation, policy, and public education.
Package requirements:
- Nomination letter (not to exceed two pages) on qualifications. Should provide evidence that the research has had an effect on the area of application. Should contain the basis of the citation and the presentation speech at the ASLO meeting;
- List of important publications and other pertinent information (not to exceed three pages);
- May include a statement that provides information on personal events that have influenced EC career achievements. These may include time required to have a family, deal with personal or family illness, do charity work, or be involved in political action;
- Three (3) letters of endorsement of no more than 1 page each. These letters should indicate the breadth of support for the nominees and the perspectives of different individuals to clearly indicate the breadth of contributions of the nominee.
Deadline: October 29, 2021
2015 Larkin Lecture: The Future of Fisheries and Oceans Research in BC: October 29, 2015
What the past tells us about the future of fisheries and oceans research in British Columbia
Dr. Richard Beamish, Pacific Biological Station, Nanaimo, BC, Canada
Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries
Thursday, October 29, 2015 from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM (PDT)
Vancouver, B.C.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Pacific salmon dominated the fishery and captured the attention of science and management in BC. Pacific herring were recovering from a collapse, the groundfish fishery was getting started, shellfish were important, but received little attention and aquaculture was mostly a dream. All this changed beginning in the 1980s. At the same time, there were undetected changes in the ocean that ultimately affected the dynamics of many species. Science now recognizes the impacts of climate and ocean ecosystem changes on seafood production in British Columbia, but the associated research remains generally fragmented. The new Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia can provide the focus and leadership that will be essential for the stewardship of our ocean ecosystems and the production of seafood in a future that will be full of surprises.
Find other stories about: seminars and events