Recent warming leads to a rapid borealization of fish communities in the Arctic

Abstract

Rapid warming of Arctic marine ecosystems has led to a change in the spatial distribution of fish communities, with boreal communities expanding into regions previously dominated by Arctic fish species, which are now retracting northwards. Arctic marine ecosystems are warming twice as fast as the global average1. As a consequence of warming, many incoming species experience increasing abundances and expanding distribution ranges in the Arctic2. The Arctic is expected to have the largest species turnover with regard to invading and locally extinct species, with a modelled invasion intensity of five times the global average3. Studies in this region might therefore give valuable insights into community-wide shifts of species driven by climate warming. We found that the recent warming in the Barents Sea4 has led to a change in spatial distribution of fish communities, with boreal communities expanding northwards at a pace reflecting the local climate velocities5. Increased abundance and distribution areas of large, migratory fish predators explain the observed community-wide distributional shifts. These shifts change the ecological interactions experienced by Arctic fish species. The Arctic shelf fish community retracted northwards to deeper areas bordering the deep polar basin. Depth might limit further retraction of some of the fish species in the Arctic shelf community. We conclude that climate warming is inducing structural change over large spatial scales at high latitudes, leading to a borealization of fish communities in the Arctic.

Cite this article

Fossheim, M., Primicerio, R., Johannesen, E. et al. Recent warming leads to a rapid borealization of fish communities in the Arctic. Nature Clim Change 5, 673–677 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2647

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