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Silver Hake Tracks Changes in Northwest Atlantic Circulation
Citation:
NYE, J. A., T. M. Joyce, Y. Kwon, AND J. S. Link. Silver Hake Tracks Changes in Northwest Atlantic Circulation. Nature Communications. Nature Publishing Group, London, Uk, 2(412):1-6, (2011).
Impact/Purpose:
Shifts in species distribution have already been observed as a result of warming water temperatures in aquatic ecosystems. Understanding the mechanisms behind these shifts is crucial to understand the impact of future climate change on organisms. This research identifies temperature as a cue to which silver hake responds by moving to remain within their preferred temperature. The position of the Gulf Stream is used as a proxy for temperature on the Northeast shelf. Because the position of the Gulf Stream can be predicted at the decadal scale and is linked to large scale oceanographic processes closely linked to climate change, we may be able to predict with reasonable certainty the future distributions of this commercially important species and perhaps others.
Description:
Recent studies documenting shifts in spatial distribution of many organisms in response to a warming climate highlight the need to understand the mechanisms underlying species distribution at large spatial scales. Here we present one noteworthy example of remote oceanographic processes governing the spatial distribution of adult silver hake, Merluccius bilinearis, a commercially important fish in the Northeast USshelf region. Changes in spatial distribution of silver hake over the last 40 years are highly correlated with the position of the Gulf Stream. These changes in distribution are in direct response to local changes in bottom temperature on the continental shelf that are responding to the same large scale circulation change affecting the Gulf Stream path, namely changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). If the AMOC weakens, as is suggested by global climate models, silver hake distribution will remain in a poleward position, the extent to which could be forecast at both decadal and multidecadal scales.