Long-Term Variability in the Southwest Atlantic Marine Fishery Ecosystems in Relation to Climate Change

Abstract

Exploring the impacts of climate variability on the marine fishery ecosystems in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean is conducive to establishing an ecosystem-based approach for the protection and rational utilization of fishery resources. In this study, long-term fisheries data, 23 environmental data from the entire Southwest Atlantic, and 25 global climate data have been used to explore the regime shift of the fishery ecosystem and the response of fishery resources to climate change from 1950 to 2018. The results indicated that changes in the Southwest Atlantic fishery ecosystem exhibited a significant nonstationary trend, and there were three noteworthy regime shifts in 1976/1977, the late 1980s, and the late 20th century. The temperature, sea surface height, water runoff, and cloudiness were the environmental variables with the greatest impact on fishery resources within the Southwest Atlantic Fishery Ecosystem, while zonal wind speed and air temperature yielded a more significant impact on low latitude areas. In terms of climate indices, fishery resources have the most obvious response to the Global Mean Land-Ocean Temperature Index and Antarctic Sea Ice Extent, and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation had an intense impact on low latitude areas concurrently. The study highlights the climate-related nonstationary changes in the Southwest Atlantic fishery ecosystem.