June 6, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
As the ocean warms, marine fish are on the move—beyond their traditional habitats and across international boundaries. Understanding these patterns of movement is essential to predicting change and managing climate-resilient fisheries.
A new collaborative NOAA Fisheries study looks at patterns of movement by multiple fish species across the entire Bering Sea shelf over decades. Alaska Fisheries Science Center scientists collaborated with Russian scientists to combine data from the eastern, western, and northern Bering Sea shelf. An innovative analysis distilled dominant patterns of fish movement over time from these data. The research advances our understanding of how the ecosystem is responding to climate change.
“International collaboration is likely going to become increasingly important for sustainable management of Bering Sea fisheries,“ said study lead Lukas DeFilippo, NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “As fish move into new habitats, we need to take a broader scale approach to monitoring to support sustainable fisheries management .”