Responding to the general warming of the northwest Atlantic Ocean over the last 40 years, a significant number of fish stocks have shifted to the north and deeper in an apparent effort to find optimal water temperature conditions, a study by NOAA researchers shows.
And some shifts are taking commercially important stocks toward the outer border of the 200-mile U.S. exclusive economic zone, the study’s authors say.
Published in the Oct. 30 edition of Marine Ecology Progress Series, the study of 36 stocks, including mainstays of the New England and Mid-Atlantic fisheries, reported that "there were clear poleward shifts consistent with warming" in 17 stocks, while four stocks appeared to shifted southward.
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