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Changes in the spatial distribution of spawning activity by north-east Atlantic mackerel in warming seas: 1977–2010

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Abstract

Migratory species with a broad geographic range, such as north-east Atlantic mackerel, may be amongst the fauna most able to respond to warming seas, typically with a poleward shift in range. Habitat heterogeneity could, however, produce more complex patterns than a simple polewards translation in distribution. We tested for changes in the central location and spatial spread of mackerel spawning over a 33-year period. Spatial statistics [centre of gravity (CoG) of egg production, spatial variance, and degree of anisotropy] were used to summarise interannual changes in the spawning locations of the western spawning stock of north-east Atlantic mackerel (NEA-WSC) using data from the ICES triennial egg survey. A northwards shift in CoG of egg production estimates was observed, related to both an expansion in the distribution in survey effort and warming waters of the north-east Atlantic. Sea surface temperature (SST) had a significant positive association with the observed northward movement of NEA-WSC mackerel, equivalent to a displacement of 37.7 km °C−1 (based on spring mean SST for the region). The spatial distribution of spawning around the CoG also changed significantly with SST, with a less elongated spatial spread in warm years. An increase in the proportion of spawning over the Porcupine Bank demonstrated how habitat interacts with positional shifts to affect how north-east Atlantic mackerel are distributed around the centre of their spawning range.

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Acknowledgments

We would especially like to thank ICES WGMEGS (working group of the mackerel egg survey) for the provision of the egg data and for their constructive comments on this research. Whilst there are 12 survey years, WGMEGS meet every year and have undertaken very careful planning of the surveys and collation and analysis of the results, for which we are tremendously appreciative to everyone involved over the past 36 years. We are very grateful for the huge amount of work put in by all crew and scientists to collect and analyse the 11,981 plankton samples over 12 years constituting a total of 57 months of sampling. We also particularly thank the participants of the survey: IMARES (the Netherlands); Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO) and Institute of Fisheries Science and Technology AZTI (Basque); Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) (UK); Marine Scotland Science, Marine Laboratory (Scotland); Thünen-Institute of Sea Fisheries (Germany); Marine Institute (Ireland); Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere IPMA (Portugal); Institute of Marine Research (Norway); Marine Research Institute (Iceland); Faroese Marine Research Institute (Faroe Islands); French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Seas (IFREMER) (France). We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who made helpful comments with the manuscript and David Anderson for discussion on multimodel inference. This project (Grant-in-Aid Agreement No. PhD/FS/07/006) was carried out under the Sea Change strategy with the support of the Marine Institute and the Marine Research Sub-Programme of the National Development Plan 2007–2013, co-financed under the European Regional Development Fund.

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There are no conflicts of interests to declare.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ryan Institute, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland

    Kathryn M. Hughes & Mark P. Johnson

  2. Marine Institute, Rinville, Oranmore, Galway, Ireland

    Leonie Dransfeld

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  1. Kathryn M. Hughes
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Correspondence to Kathryn M. Hughes.

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Communicated by J. Houghton.

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Hughes, K.M., Dransfeld, L. & Johnson, M.P. Changes in the spatial distribution of spawning activity by north-east Atlantic mackerel in warming seas: 1977–2010. Mar Biol 161, 2563–2576 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-014-2528-1

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