Correction: Incorporating mesopelagic fish into the evaluation of marine protected areas under climate change scenarios.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s42995-023-00188-9.].

Incorporating mesopelagic fish into the evaluation of conservation areas for marine living resources under climate change scenarios.

Mesopelagic fish (meso-fish) are central species within the Southern Ocean (SO). However, their ecosystem role and adaptive capacity to climate change are rarely integrated into protected areas assessments. This is a pity given their importance as crucial prey and predators in food webs, coupled with the impacts of climate change. Here, we estimate the habitat distribution of nine meso-fish using an ensemble model approach (MAXENT, random forest, and boosted regression tree). Four climate model simulations were used to project their distribution under two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) for short-term (2006-2055) and long-term (2050-2099) periods. In addition, we assess the ecological representativeness of protected areas under climate change scenarios using meso-fish as indicator species. Our models show that all species shift poleward in the future. Lanternfishes (family Myctophidae) are predicted to migrate poleward more than other families (Paralepididae, Nototheniidae, Bathylagidae, and Gonostomatidae). In comparison, lanternfishes were projected to increase habitat area in the eastern SO but lose area in the western SO; the opposite was projected for species in other families. Important areas (IAs) of meso-fish are mainly distributed near the Antarctic Peninsula and East Antarctica. Negotiated protected area cover 23% of IAs at present and 38% of IAs in the future (RCP8.5, long-term future). Many IAs of meso-fish still need to be included in protected areas, such as the Prydz Bay and the seas around the Antarctic Peninsula. Our results provide a framework for evaluating protected areas incorporating climate change adaptation strategies for protected areas management. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42995-023-00188-9.

Climate risks to fishing species and fisheries in the China Seas.

Climate change is one of the most concerning topics in the Anthropocene. Increasing sea water temperature will trigger a series of ecological consequences, altering the various functions and services that marine ecosystems provide for humans. Fisheries, specifically, will likely face the most direct impact. China provides unparalleled catches with enormous and intensive fishing effort, and China Seas are suffering from significantly increasing water temperature. However, uncertainties in the impacts of climate change on fishing species and fisheries in the China Seas present challenges for the formulation of coping and adapting strategies. Here, we employed a climate risk assessment framework to evaluate the climate risks of fishing species and fisheries of various provinces in China in the past decade, aiming to benefit the development and prioritization of appropriate adaptation options to climate change. Results show that considering the water temperature in the 2010s, 20 % of fishing species in the China Seas have one-fourth of their habitats unsuitable, and the situation will become worse with future warming scenarios in the 2050s when nearly half of species will have at least one-fourth of their habitats no longer suitable. Integrating hazard, exposure and vulnerability, climate risks to fisheries feature heterogeneity among provinces. Climate risks to fisheries of northern provinces are characterized by low hazard and high exposure, while the southern counterparts are largely determined by high hazard and low exposure. Climate change is threatening fishing species and remarkably altering fishery patterns in China Seas. Shifting fishing targets, increasing fishing efficiency, raising catch diversity, and updating fishery-related industries would be effective steps to help fisheries adapt to climate change, and adaptation strategies need to be tailored considering local realities.

Critical transitions and ecological resilience of large marine ecosystems in the Northwestern Pacific in response to global warming.

Natural systems can undergo critical transitions, leading to substantial socioeconomic and ecological outcomes. "Ecological resilience" has been proposed to describe the capacity of natural systems to absorb external perturbation and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks. However, the mere application of ecological resilience in theoretical research and the lack of quantitative approaches present considerable obstacles for predicting critical transitions and understanding their mechanisms. Large marine ecosystems (LMEs) in the Northwestern Pacific are characterized by great biodiversity and productivity, as well as remarkable warming in recent decades. However, no information is available on the critical transitions and ecological resilience of LMEs in response to warming. Therefore, we applied an integrated resilience assessment framework to fisheries catch data from seven LMEs covering a wide range of regions, from tropical to subarctic, in the Northwestern Pacific to identify critical transitions, assess ecological resilience, and reconstruct folded stability landscapes, with a specific focus on the effects of warming. The results provide evidence of the occurrence of critical transitions, with fold bifurcation and hysteresis in response to increasing sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the seven LMEs. In addition, these LMEs show similarities and synchronies in structure variations and critical transitions forced by warming. Both dramatic increases in SST and small fluctuations at the corresponding thresholds may trigger critical transitions. Ecological resilience decreases when approaching the tipping points and is repainted as the LMEs shift to alternative stable states with different resilient dynamics. Folded stability landscapes indicate that the responses of LMEs to warming are discontinuous, which may be caused by the reorganization of LMEs as their sensitivity to warming changes. Our study clarifies the nonlinear responses of LMEs to anthropogenic warming and provides examples of quantifying ecological resilience in empirical systems at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales.

[Effects of environmental factors on catch distribution of stow net Pseudosciaena polyactis and Lophius litulon in southern Yellow Sea in spring].

Stow net fishery is one of the important fishing methods in southern Yellow Sea. Based on the 2006-2009 data from the stow net fishery resources survey in the southern Yellow Sea in spring, and by using the generalized linear model (GLM) and generalized additive model (GAM), this paper quantitatively analyzed the relationships between the catch distribution of Pseudosciaena polyactis and Lophius litulon and the environmental factors such as year, position, water depth, and sea surface temperature (SST). Compared with GLM model, GAM model could better explain the relationships between the spatiotemporal distribution of the catch per unit effort (CPUE) of P. polyactis and P. litulon and the environmental factors. There was a significant negative correlation between the CPUE of the two fish species. The P. polyactis' CPUE showed a decreasing trend from north to south along the latitude direction, being smaller especially around the Yangtze River estuary, and the L. litulon' s CPUE was also smaller near the Yangtze River estuary. The CPUE of the two species showed a significant correlation with the SST. The calculated optimal scale of the SST for L. polyactis and P. litulon was 9-11 degrees C and 9-14 degrees C, respectively.

Tissue-specific accumulation of cadmium and its effects on antioxidative responses in Japanese flounder juveniles.

This study investigated the accumulation of cadmium (0-8 mg Cd L⁻¹) and its toxicological effects on oxidative stress biomarkers in different tissues of Japanese flounder juveniles. Following Cd exposure for 28 d, accumulation of Cd in fish was dose-dependent and tissue-specific, with the greatest accumulation in the liver, followed by the kidney, gill, and muscle. Although the gill and liver mounted active antioxidant responses at ≥ 4 mg L⁻¹ Cd including a decrease in glutathione level and GST and GPx activities, the antioxidant response failed to prevent lipid peroxidation induction in these organs. In the kidney, increased GPx and GST activities and decreased SOD activity were observed in fish exposed to high Cd concentrations, but LPO levels did not significantly differ among the exposure concentrations. The gill was most sensitive to oxidative damage, followed by the liver; the kidney was the least affected tissue.

Toxicity of short-term copper exposure to early life stages of red sea bream, Pagrus major.

Acute (0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.6 mg Cu/L) and chronic (0, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.10, 0.12 mg Cu/L) toxicity tests of Cu with embryonic and larval red sea bream, Pagrus major, were carried out to investigate their biological responses to Cu exposure in static water at 18 +/- 1 degrees C (dissolved organic carbon, 1.8 +/- 0.65 mg C/L; hardness, 6,183 +/- 360 mg CaCO3/L; salinity, 33 +/- 1 per thousand). The 24- and 48-h LC50 (median lethal concentration) values of Cu for embryos were 0.23 and 0.15 mg/L, whereas the 48-, 72-, and 96-h LC50 values for larvae were 0.52, 0.19, and 0.13 mg/L, respectively, suggesting that embryos were more sensitive to Cu toxicity than larvae. Copper exposures at > or =0.06 mg concentrations caused low hatching success, a delay in the time to hatching of embryos, and reductions in the growth and yolk absorption of the larvae, whereas high mortality and morphological malformations occurred in the embryos and larvae at > or =0.08 mg/L concentrations. Copper concentration did not significantly affect the heart rate of the embryos, but it significantly decreased the heart rate of the newly hatched larvae when the Cu concentration was > or =0.08 mg/L, suggesting that Cu at high concentrations could induce heartbeat disturbances in red sea bream more easily at the larval stage than at the embryonic stage. Hatching success, time to hatching, growth rate, morphological abnormality, yolk absorption, and heart rate were Cu concentration-dependent and could be effective endpoints for evaluating Cu toxicity to the early life stages of red sea bream in nature.

Antioxidative responses and bioaccumulation in Japanese flounder larvae and juveniles under chronic mercury exposure.

This study investigated the sub-lethal effects of waterborne mercury on growth, bioaccumulation and antioxidative responses of larvae and juveniles of Japanese flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus). Fish were exposed to 0-10 microg Hg(2)(+)L(-1) solutions from embryonic to the juvenile stages for 80 days. Antioxidative responses to mercury exposure were studied in metamorphosing larvae (18 days post hatching, dph), settling larvae (33 dph) and juveniles (78 dph). Results showed that increasing mercury concentration led to increased mercury bioaccumulation and reduced flounder growth. Of the antioxidants investigated, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities at the three developmental stages were sensitive to mercury exposure and increased with increasing mercury concentration. Glutathione (GSH) content was elevated in metamorphosing larvae, but decreased in juveniles as mercury concentration increased. Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) activity did not significantly vary with mercury concentration in either larvae or juveniles. Mercury exposure did not affect malondialdehyde (MDA) content of larvae, but significantly increased MDA content of juveniles. Results suggest that flounder larvae and juveniles have the potential to manipulate the levels of antioxidants such as SOD, CAT and GSH, which protect flounder from oxidative stress induced by mercury exposure. These antioxidants could serve as biomarkers of mercury contamination in the aquatic environment.