March 1, 2023 — Understanding how climate change and fishing pressure affect major commercial species productivity and body size is key to being able to adapt and ensure the future sustainability of the fisheries.
In this context, a team from Spain’s Ciencia y tecnología marina y alimentaria (AZTI) has coordinated a study, published in Global and Planetary Change, in which the projections in tuna species and swordfish productivity and body size in the future under different climatic and fishing scenarios have been analyzed. A model that includes many mechanisms that represent the population dynamics of different species and the competition between them has been used for this purpose.
“We wanted to know how the climate change and fishing pressure is going to impact some of the most commercially important species in order to make decisions to ensure the future of the resources,” says Maite Erauskin-Extramiana, the AZTI researcher who led the study.