Climate Change and Small Pelagic Fish

This book details the effects of climate variability on small pelagic fish and their ecosystems and fisheries. Particularly abundant in coastal upwelling regions off the west coasts of the Americas and Africa, off Japan, and in the NE Atlantic, the stocks of these fish fluctuate greatly over the timescale of decades, with large ecological and economic effects. This book describes the nature and cause of these fluctuations, and their consequences. It outlines results from paleo-oceanographic studies, showing that similar fluctuations have also occurred over the past two millennia. The potential effects of future climate change, both natural and anthropogenic, on stocks and fisheries, are considered. The book concludes by recommending the continued international study and assessment of small pelagic fish in order to best inform management and policy under a changing climate. It is written for research scientists, academics, and policy makers in fisheries, oceanography, and climate change.

Dave Checkley is a biological oceanographer with expertise in the ecology of marine zooplankton and fish and fisheries oceanography. He is a Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. He has been a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, Aberdeen; a member of the faculties of the University of Alaska, the University of Texas, and North Carolina State University; and a Tech Awards Laureate of the Tech Museum, San Jose, California. He led the development of CUFES, SOLOPC, and REFLICS. He is the co-chair of Small Pelagic Fish and Climate Change (SPACC) and Editor-in-Chief of Fisheries Oceanography.

Jürgen Alheit is a fisheries biologist. His main interest is the impact of climate variability on marine ecosystems. While working at the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission at UNESCO in Paris, he was responsible for the Ocean Sciences in Relation to Living Resources Programme of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which focused on small pelagics. He is the co-founder and former co-chair of SPACC, chair of the GLOBEC Focus 1 Working Group on Retrospective Analysis, and chair of the German GLOBEC Project. He serves on the Scientific Steering Committee of the GLOBEC International Programme.

Yoshioki Oozeki is the Chief Scientist of the Fish Ecology Section, National Research Institute of Fisheries Science, Fisheries Research Agency, Japan, and Professor of Marine Life Science at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. He is a fisheries biologist with expertise in the larval biology and ecology of small pelagic fish, and has lead the egg and larval survey project in waters around Japan for twelve years. He has also investigated larva physiology, database management, stock assessment, sampling gear technology, and variation of fish in relation to climate. He received the Uda Award from the Japanese Society of Fisheries Oceanography in 2007.

Claude Roy is a physical oceanographer with expertise in fisheries oceanography and upwelling systems dynamics. As a scientist of the French Research Institute for Development (IRD), he spent extended periods of time in countries bordering upwelling systems, during which he contributed to the implementation of several regional 'climate and fisheries' research and training projects. He has been involved in SPACC since the late 1990s and served as its co-chair from 2003 to 2008.