Life histories determine divergent population trends for fishes under climate warming

Wang, H.-Y., Shen, S.-F., Chen, Y.-S., Kiang, Y.-K., & Heino, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2928-3940 (2020). Life histories determine divergent population trends for fishes under climate warming. Nature Communications 11 (1) e4088. 10.1038/s41467-020-17937-4.

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Abstract

Most marine fish species express life-history changes across temperature gradients, such as faster growth, earlier maturation, and higher mortality at higher temperature. However, such climate-driven effects on life histories and population dynamics remain unassessed for most fishes. For 332 Indo-Pacific fishes, we show positive effects of temperature on body growth (but with decreasing asymptotic length), reproductive rates (including earlier age-at-maturation), and natural mortality for all species, with the effect strength varying among habitat-related species groups. Reef and demersal fishes are more sensitive to temperature changes than pelagic and bathydemersal fishes. Using a life table, we show that the combined changes of life histories upon increasing temperature tend to facilitate population growth for slow life-history populations, but reduce it for fast life-history ones. Within our data, lower proportions (25-30%) of slow life-history fishes but greater proportions of fast life-history fishes (42-60%) show declined population growth rates under 1 °C warming. Together, these findings suggest prioritizing sustainable management for fast life-history species.

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