Risky fishy favourites

Popular North Sea fish such as haddock, plaice and lemon sole could become less common on our menus because they will be constrained to preferred habitats as seas warm, according to a study published in April 2015 in Nature Climate Change and authored by a team that included Professor Mark Johnson of the Ryan Institute at NUI Galway.

The team took survey data dating back to 1980 and used the change in distribution between decades to derive predictive models. In the last 40 years, the North Sea has warmed four times faster than the global average, and further warming is predicted over the coming century. The North Sea is associated with fish landings valued at over $1 billion, leading to great interest in how changing environmental conditions will impact on commercial species.

Fish distributions are limited by a number of factors, including water temperature, and some species can only thrive in certain habitats and depths. The research developed models that combine long-term fisheries datasets and climate model projections to predict the abundance and distribution of consumers’ favourite fish over the next 50 years. As the North Sea warms, species appear to choose habitats of a suitable depth over the benefits of moving to cooler waters. Due to higher temperatures in the future, many of the species studied may suffer population declines.