Future Distribution of Suitable Habitat for Pelagic Sharks in Australia Under Climate Change Models.

Birkmanis, Charlotte A.; Freer, Jennifer ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3947-9261; Simmons, Leigh W.; Partridge, Julian C.; Sequeira, Ana M. M.. 2020 Future Distribution of Suitable Habitat for Pelagic Sharks in Australia Under Climate Change Models. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, 570. 11, pp. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.00570

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Text (Open Access) Copyright © 2020 Birkmanis, Freer, Simmons, Partridge and Sequeira. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. fmars-07-00570.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

Global oceans are absorbing over 90% of the heat trapped in our atmosphere due to accumulated anthropogenic greenhouse gases, resulting in increasing ocean temperatures. Such changes may influence marine ectotherms, such as sharks, as their body temperature concurrently increases toward their upper thermal limits. Sharks are high trophic level predators that play a key role in the regulation of ecosystem structure and health. Because many sharks are already threatened, it is especially important to understand the impact of climate change on these species. We used shark occurrence records collected by commercial fisheries within the Australian continental Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to predict changes in future (2050-2099) relative to current (1956-2005) habitat suitability for pelagic sharks based on an ensemble of climate models and emission scenarios. Our predictive models indicate that future sea temperatures are likely to shift the location of suitable shark habitat within the Australian EEZ. On average, suitable habitat is predicted to decrease within the EEZ for requiem and increase for mackerel sharks, however, the direction and severity of change was highly influenced by the choice of climate model. Our results indicate the need to consider climate change scenarios as part of future shark management and suggest that more broad -scale studies are needed for these pelagic species.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.00570
ISSN:	2296-7745
Additional Keywords:	sea surface temperature, climate change, marine ecosystems, species distribution models, global warming, Lamnidae, Carcharhinidae
Date made live:	29 Jul 2020 10:53 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/528240

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