Global marine primary production constrains fisheries catches.

Primary production must constrain the amount of fish and invertebrates available to expanding fisheries; however the degree of limitation has only been demonstrated at regional scales to date. Here we show that phytoplanktonic primary production, estimated from an ocean-colour satellite (SeaWiFS), is related to global fisheries catches at the scale of Large Marine Ecosystems, while accounting for temperature and ecological factors such as ecosystem size and type, species richness, animal body size, and the degree and nature of fisheries exploitation. Indeed we show that global fisheries catches since 1950 have been increasingly constrained by the amount of primary production. The primary production appropriated by current global fisheries is 17-112% higher than that appropriated by sustainable fisheries. Global primary production appears to be declining, in some part due to climate variability and change, with consequences for the near future fisheries catches.

[1]  Joel E. Cohen,et al.  Food web patterns and their consequences , 1991, Nature.

[2]  Nicholas K Dulvy,et al.  Biology of extinction risk in marine fishes , 2005, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[3]  Raymond L. Lindeman.  The trophic-dynamic aspect of ecology , 1942 .

[4]  Michael L. Pace,et al.  Ecosystem size determines food-chain length in lakes , 2022 .

[5]  Carlos M. Duarte,et al.  The fate of marine autotrophic production , 1996 .

[6]  Xabier Irigoien,et al.  Scaling the metabolic balance of the oceans. , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[7]  Marta Coll,et al.  Ecosystem Overfishing in the Ocean , 2008, PloS one.

[8]  B. Cade,et al.  A gentle introduction to quantile regression for ecologists , 2003 .

[9]  Stuart,et al.  Ecosystem approach to fisheries , 2009 .

[10]  Scott C. Doney,et al.  Response of ocean ecosystems to climate warming , 2004 .

[11]  Melanie Abecassis,et al.  Ocean's least productive waters are expanding , 2008 .

[12]  Michele Scardi,et al.  Assessing the Uncertainties of Model Estimates of Primary Productivity in the Tropical Pacific Ocean Revised , 2008 .

[13]  D. Pauly,et al.  Primary production required to sustain global fisheries , 1995, Nature.

[14]  Steven A. Murawski,et al.  Definitions of overfishing from an ecosystem perspective , 2000 .

[15]  A. Longhurst.  Ecological Geography of the Sea , 1998 .

[16]  R. R. Strathmann,et al.  ESTIMATING THE ORGANIC CARBON CONTENT OF PHYTOPLANKTON FROM CELL VOLUME OR PLASMA VOLUME1 , 1967 .

[17]  Daniel Pauly,et al.  Systematic distortions in world fisheries catch trends , 2001, Nature.

[18]  Igor M. Belkin,et al.  Rapid warming of Large Marine Ecosystems , 2009 .

[19]  Stanford B. Hooker,et al.  An overview of the SeaWiFS project and strategies for producing a climate research quality global ocean bio-optical time series , 2004 .

[20]  K. Frank,et al.  The ups and downs of trophic control in continental shelf ecosystems. , 2007, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[21]  G. Bianchi,et al.  The ecosystem approach to fisheries , 2008 .

[22]  T. Platt,et al.  An estimate of global primary production in the ocean from satellite radiometer data , 1995 .

[23]  P. C. Reid,et al.  A biological consequence of reducing Arctic ice cover: arrival of the Pacific diatom Neodenticula seminae in the North Atlantic for the first time in 800 000 years , 2007 .

[24]  David A. Siegel,et al.  Climate-driven trends in contemporary ocean productivity , 2006, Nature.

[25]  T. Pitcher,et al.  Towards sustainability in world fisheries , 2002, Nature.

[26]  R. Iverson,et al.  Control of marine fish production , 1990 .

[27]  Frédéric Mélin,et al.  Global-scale predictions of community and ecosystem properties from simple ecological theory , 2008, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[28]  S. Jennings,et al.  Life–history correlates of maximum population growth rates in marine fishes , 2002, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[29]  Benjamin Planque,et al.  Quantile regression models for fish recruitment-environment relationships : four case studies , 2008 .

[30]  M. Piehler,et al.  Warming and Resource Availability Shift Food Web Structure and Metabolism , 2009, PLoS biology.

[31]  J. Ryther.  Photosynthesis and fish production in the sea. , 1969, Science.

[32]  D. Pauly.  One hundred million tonnes of fish, and fisheries research , 1996 .

[33]  Michele Scardi,et al.  A comparison of global estimates of marine primary production from ocean color , 2006 .

[34]  T. Pitcher,et al.  Estimating the Worldwide Extent of Illegal Fishing , 2009, PloS one.

[35]  T. Essington,et al.  Fishing through marine food webs. , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[36]  Marta Coll,et al.  Novel index for quantification of ecosystem effects of fishing as removal of secondary production , 2008 .

[37]  Ethan P. White,et al.  Thermodynamic and metabolic effects on the scaling of production and population energy use , 2003 .

[38]  Stanford B. Hooker,et al.  An overview of the SeaWiFS Project , 1993 .

[39]  J. Sarmiento,et al.  Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios , 2009 .

[40]  Peter Tyedmers,et al.  The Future for Fisheries , 2003, Science.

[41]  F. Mélin,et al.  Bottom-up control regulates fisheries production at the scale of eco-regions in European seas , 2007 .

[42]  M. Conkright,et al.  Comparison of global chlorophyll climatologies: In situ, CZCS, Blended in situ -CZCS and SeaWiFS , 2003 .

[43]  D. Ware,et al.  Bottom-Up Ecosystem Trophic Dynamics Determine Fish Production in the Northeast Pacific , 2005, Science.

[44]  V. Christensen,et al.  Trophic flow kinetics in marine ecosystems: Toward a theoretical approach to ecosystem functioning , 2008 .

[45]  Geoffrey B. West,et al.  Effects of Body Size and Temperature on Population Growth , 2004, The American Naturalist.

[46]  Daniel Pauly,et al.  EcoTroph: Modelling marine ecosystem functioning and impact of fishing , 2009 .

[47]  S. Garcia.  The ecosystem approach to fisheries : issues, terminology, principles, institutional foundations, implementation and outlook , 2003 .

[48]  S. Jennings,et al.  Life history correlates of responses to fisheries exploitation , 1998, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[49]  P. C. Reid,et al.  Phytoplankton change in the North Atlantic , 1998, Nature.

[50]  D. Pauly,et al.  Mapping global fisheries: sharpening our focus , 2004 .