Long-term Data Sets Reveal Shifting Marine Species Distribution

Fishy Fridays

Weekly spotlight on fisheries science journal articles

 

Jeff Kopaska
AFS Executive Director
[email protected]

I spent this week in Washington, D.C., undertaking a variety of tasks for AFS. In particular, I had the opportunity to meet with fisheries staffers from a variety of agencies, including NOAA, US Forest Service, and USGS (all of the USFWS folks were out of town).  Today’s paper highlights work completed by NOAA fisheries scientists, assessing 40+ years of MRIP (Marine Recreational Information Program) data on recreational angler catches to determine if latitudinal changes in fish distributions had occurred/could be detected in the data.  Projects like the show the value of long-term data sets. The research also suggested that coastal marine species were more likely to have shifted northward than offshore species. The shifting species distributions result in challenges for fisheries management, and require greater adaptability in management strategies and more active monitoring – a significant challenge today! 

I hope you enjoy todays paper, and look for a future note in Fisheries about our AFS Capitol Hill fly in this week. 

Marine fish distribution shifts inferred from a recreational fishing survey along the U.S. East Coast