Regional trends in climate stressor perceptions across the US fishery management system

The United States (US) fishery management council system is uniquely positioned and legislatively required to manage the impacts of climate change to preserve sustainable and profitable fisheries. To this end, numerous national and regional mandates exist to proactively address climate impacts across the spatially distributed system of US fishery management. However, the ways that climate stressors manifest can vary widely by region and by fishery. Understanding which climate stressors are consistently perceived as occurring across the fishery management system, and which ones vary by region, can aid in informing prioritization and coordination efforts. This paper presents new survey data on the perceived presence or absence of climate stressors across all eight regions of the US fishery management council system. Respondents were asked to review 12 common environmental stressors and to identify whether each is being observed in their region now (within the last five years) or is expected to occur in the future (within 30 years). Our findings reveal a cross-regional consensus that climate stressors are currently impacting fisheries, with some variation in their immediacy and type. Six out of eight regions identify current species moving within their region as the most common stressor. Directly adjacent regions tend to have more similar responses than non-adjacent regions, and statistical modeling reveals that perceptions of stressors are significantly predicted by the management region in which a respondent primarily works. These findings demonstrate the prevalence of climate stressors across all regions of the US fishery management system, and point to specific regions and topics where increased coordination could benefit the adaptive capacity of the management system under future change.