Tipping point realized in cod fishery

Abstract 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...

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Autores principales: Christian Möllmann, Xochitl Cormon, Steffen Funk, Saskia A. Otto, Jörn O. Schmidt, Heike Schwermer, Camilla Sguotti, Rudi Voss, Martin Quaas
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2021
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/c45dd2ce88074eae849c5db322718119
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Sumario:Abstract 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.