Northeast Atlantic species distribution shifts over the last two decades.

Marine species are widely shifting their distributions in response to global changes and it is commonly expected they will move northward and to greater depths to reach cooler, less disturbed habitats. However, local manifestations of global changes, anthropogenic pressures, and species characteristics may lead to unanticipated and varied responses by individual species. In this regard, the Celtic-Biscay Shelf is a particularly interesting study system because it has historically been heavily fished and occurs at the interface between two distinct biogeographic provinces, its community thus comprised of species with diverse thermal preferenda. In the context of rapidly warming temperatures and intense fishery exploitation, we investigated the distribution shifts of 93 taxa (65 Actinopteri, 10 Elasmobranchii, 11 Cephalopoda, 5 Malacostraca, and 2 Bivalvia), which were sampled annually from 1997 to 2020 during a scientific bottom trawl survey. We used a set of 11 complementary spatial indices to quantify taxon distribution shifts over time. Then, we explored the relative effect of taxon abundance, fishing pressure, and climatic conditions on taxon's distribution shift when a significant shift was detected. We observed that 56% of the taxa significantly shifted. Not all taxa will necessarily shift northward and to deeper areas, as it is often expected. Two opposite patterns were identified: taxa either moving deeper and to the southeast, or moving closer to the surface and to the northwest. The main explanatory factors were climate change (short- and long-term temperatures) and taxon abundance. Fishing pressure was the third, but still significant, explanatory factor of taxa of greater commercial importance. Our research highlights that taxa are displaying complex distribution shifts in response to the combined anthropogenic disturbances and underscores the need to conduct regional studies to better understand these responses at the ecosystem scale to develop more suitable management plans and policies.

Morphometric Relationships between Length and Weight of 109 Fish Species in the Caribbean Sea (French West Indies).

In total, 109 fish species (24,996 individuals) were sampled around Guadeloupe and Martinique Islands from October 2021 to September 2022 to estimate the morphometric relationships between total length and weight (Length Weight Relationship: LWR) of each fish species according to potential spatial, temporal and sex differences. Of these species, this is the first time that the LWR was estimated in the Atlantic Ocean for 16 species. There is a significant relationship between length and weight for all tested species. For 83 tested species, the sex effect on the LWR showed significant sexual dimorphism for 24 species. Additionally, a link between the temporal effect and the reproduction period was tested for 68 species, of which 35 presented significant differences relative to the annual quarter of sampling. Finally, the geographical effect (i.e., the difference between samples from around Guadeloupe Island and those from Martinique Island) was significant for 60 species. This island effect was significant for 25 species.

TrophicCS: Spatialized trophic data of the Celtic Sea continental shelf food web.

Understanding the dynamics of species interactions for food (prey-predator, competition for resources) and the functioning of trophic networks (dependence on trophic pathways, food chain flows, etc.) has become a thriving ecological research field in recent decades. This empirical knowledge is then used to develop population and ecosystem modeling approaches to support ecosystem-based management. The TrophicCS data set offers spatialized trophic information on a large spatial scale (the entire Celtic Sea continental shelf and upper slope) for a wide range of species. It combines ingested prey (gut content analysis) and a more integrated indicator of food sources (stable isotope analysis). A total of 1337 samples of large epifaunal invertebrates (bivalve mollusks and decapod crustaceans), zooplankton, fish, and cephalopods, corresponding to 111 taxa (94% determined at the species level), were collected and analyzed for stable isotope analysis of their carbon and nitrogen content. Samples were collected between 2014 and 2016, mostly during the month of November and between 57 and 516 m depth. Sample size varied between taxa (from 1 to 52), with 98 taxa having at least three samples. The gut contents of 1027 fish belonging to 10 commercially important species: black anglerfish (Lophius budegassa), white anglerfish (Lophius piscatorius), blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou), cod (Gadus morhua), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), hake (Merluccius merluccius), megrim (Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis), plaice (Pleuronectes platessa), sole (Solea solea), and whiting (Merlangius merlangus) were analyzed. Sampling occurred in November 2014 and 2015. The gut content data set contains the occurrence of prey in gut, identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible. No prey were assigned for 274 empty gut contents. To consider potential ontogenetic diet changes, a large size range was sampled for each species. The TrophicCS data set was used to improve understanding of trophic relationships and ecosystem functioning in the Celtic Sea. Data are released under a CC-BY-NC-SA license, and please cite this paper when reusing the data.

Testing spatial heterogeneity with stock assessment models.

This paper describes a methodology that combines meta-population theory and stock assessment models to gain insights about spatial heterogeneity of the meta-population in an operational time frame. The methodology was tested with stochastic simulations for different degrees of connectivity between sub-populations and applied to two case studies, North Sea cod (Gadus morua) and Northeast Atlantic sardine (Sardina pilchardus). Considering that the biological components of a population can be partitioned into discrete spatial units, we extended this idea into a property of additivity of sub-population abundances. If the additivity results hold true for putative sub-populations, then assessment results based on sub-populations will provide information to develop and monitor the implementation of finer scale/local management. The simulation study confirmed that when sub-populations are independent and not too heterogeneous with regards to productivity, the sum of stock assessment model estimates of sub-populations' SSB is similar to the SSB estimates of the meta-population. It also showed that a strong diffusion process can be detected and that the stronger the connection between SSB and recruitment, the better the diffusion process will be detected. On the other hand it showed that weak to moderate diffusion processes are not easy to identify and large differences between sub-populations productivities may be confounded with weak diffusion processes. The application to North Sea cod and Atlantic sardine exemplified how much insight can be gained. In both cases the results obtained were sufficiently robust to support the regional analysis.