Presentation: A paleoceanographic perspective on the future of fish productivity in the Humboldt Current system

next Tuesday, on the 5.11.’24 at 10:00 ct, the Current Topics in Marine Biogeochemistry seminar series will start with a talk by 

Dr. Renato Salvatteci (CAU Kiel, Center for Ocean and Society)

on

A paleoceanographic perspective on the future of fish productivity in the Humboldt Current system

Abstract:

Climate change will drive marine ecosystems beyond the range of natural variability observed during the instrumental period, impacting the distribution, abundance and diversity of fish communities. Geological records can provide insight on the response of fish populations to past climatic changes, especially during time periods warmer than present. Here, we focus on the highly productive Humboldt Current system (HCS) and show multiple fish debris records together with proxies for environmental conditions spanning the last 140,000 years. This timescale encompasses a variety of combinations of productivity, oxygen, and global temperature and the response of fish populations to these conditions are crucial to understand the effects of future climate change on hotspots of fish productivity. The records reveal multiple modes and timescales of variability in response to past large-scale climate changes of larger magnitude than those observed in the instrumental period. Small pelagic fishes in the HCS are currently in a ‘sweet spot’ considering that they almost disappeared 125,000 years ago when the world was warmer than today and 20,000 years ago when the world was colder than today. Surprisingly, the warmer-than-present time period was dominated by gobies and mesopelagic fishes; smaller fish species of low economic value that are specially adapted to low oxygen conditions. I discuss how the combined results can be used for adaptation and management strategies. Our rapidly warming world poses a threat to fish productivity in tropical regions and emphasize the need for multidisciplinary research combining paleoceanographic and historical observations with model predictions.

The seminar will take place in the large lecture hall, building 8, at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Wischhofstr. 1-3, 24148 Kiel).

Online participation is also possible: https://geomar-de.zoom-x.de/j/66961727206?pwd=3baBTT65XbC8ac430QanjJan3LrNBR.1