Title Predicting the Distribution of Commercially ImportantInvertebrate Stocks under Future Climate

The future management of commercially exploited species is challenging because techniques used to predict the future distribution of stocks under climate change are currently inadequate. We projected the future distribution and abundance of two commercially harvested abalone species (blacklip abalone, Haliotis rubra and greenlip abalone, H. laevigata) inhabiting coastal South Australia, using multiple species distribution models (SDM) and for decadal time slices through to 2100. Projections are based on two contrasting global greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. The SDMs identified August (winter) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) as the best descriptor of abundance and forecast that warming of winter temperatures under both scenarios may be beneficial to both species by allowing increased abundance and expansion into previously uninhabited coasts. This range expansion is unlikely to be realised, however, as projected warming of March SST is projected to exceed temperatures which cause up to 10-fold increases in juvenile mortality. By linking fine-resolution forecasts of sea surface temperature under different climate change scenarios to SDMs and physiological experiments, we provide a practical first approximation of the potential impact of climate-induced change on two species of marine invertebrates in the same fishery. Citation: Russell BD, Connell SD, Mellin C, Brook BW, Burnell OW, et al. (2012) Predicting the Distribution of Commercially Important Invertebrate Stocks under Future Climate. PLoS ONE 7(12): e46554. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0046554 Editor: Kimberly Patraw Van Niel, University of Western Australia, Australia Received March 14, 2012; Accepted September 2, 2012; Published December 12, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Russell et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The research was partly funded by Australian Research Council Grants to D. A. Fordham, B. W. Brook and S. D. Connell. C. Mellin was funded by the Marine Biodiversity Hub, a collaborative partnership supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Environmental Research Program (NERP). NERP Marine Biodiversity Hub partners include the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania; CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Museum Victoria, Charles Darwin University and the University of Western Australia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No additional external funding received for this study. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: bayden.russell@adelaide.edu.au