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Tipping point realized in cod fishery

Understanding tipping point dynamics in harvested ecosystems is of crucial importance for sustainable resource management because ignoring their existence imperils social-ecological systems that depend on them. Fisheries collapses provide the best known examples for realizing tipping points with cat...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Möllmann, Christian, Cormon, Xochitl, Funk, Steffen, Otto, Saskia A., Schmidt, Jörn O., Schwermer, Heike, Sguotti, Camilla, Voss, Rudi, Quaas, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8275682/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34253825
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93843-z
Descripción
Sumario:Understanding tipping point dynamics in harvested ecosystems is of crucial importance for sustainable resource management because ignoring their existence imperils social-ecological systems that depend on them. Fisheries collapses provide the best known examples for realizing tipping points with catastrophic ecological, economic and social consequences. However, present-day fisheries management systems still largely ignore the potential of their resources to exhibit such abrupt changes towards irreversible low productive states. Using a combination of statistical changepoint analysis and stochastic cusp modelling, here we show that Western Baltic cod is beyond such a tipping point caused by unsustainable exploitation levels that failed to account for changing environmental conditions. Furthermore, climate change stabilizes a novel and likely irreversible low productivity state of this fish stock that is not adapted to a fast warming environment. We hence argue that ignorance of non-linear resource dynamics has caused the demise of an economically and culturally important social-ecological system which calls for better adaptation of fisheries systems to climate change.