Trait-Based Indicators of Marine Communities' Sensitivity to Climate Change and Fishing

Peer Review The peer review history for this article is available at https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1111/ddi.13959.

Data Availability Statement The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in OSF repository at https://osf.io/72vhk/?view_only=e2be7e9acb0d48dbba5dc367078d4ff5.

Aim: Overexploitation of wildlife and anthropogenic climate change are key drivers of global biodiversity loss. Investigating how these stressors interact and affect ecosystems is critical for conservation efforts. Following trait-based vulnerability assessments, we propose two community-level sensitivity indicators: climate change (S<inf>CC</inf>) and fishing pressure (S<inf>FP</inf>). Location: Cantabrian and Spanish Mediterranean Sea. Methods: Both indicators were calculated for 246 fish and megabenthos species, sampled during 1994–2019 in two areas with contrasting levels of warming and fishing pressure. Indicator calculation was based on traits that, according to existing evidence, can be linked to (1) sensitivity to climate change (scored as S<inf>CC</inf>) and (2) sensitivity to fishing pressure (S<inf>FP</inf>). Using each species' sensitivity scores, and abundance data from the surveys, we explored whether these areas' community-level sensitivity has changed spatiotemporally in line with the expected functional responses to these predominant pressures. Results: Although both regions have warmed, the Spanish Mediterranean is far more so. Its community-level S<inf>CC</inf> has decreased, reflecting a shift in composition from warm-sensitive to warm-affinity species. In contrast, sensitivity dynamics in the Cantabrian Sea varied, with warm-sensitive species increasing in deeper areas and decreasing towards the inner Bay of Biscay. Decreasing fishing pressure in both regions paralleled an increase in sensitivity in the Cantabrian Sea, particularly among slow-reproducing, longer-lived species. The Spanish Mediterranean, however, showed a relative loss of fishing-sensitive, long-lived species and both cases showed spatial heterogeneity. Main Conclusions: Associations are revealed between S<inf>CC</inf> and S<inf>FP</inf>, and climate change and fishing, respectively. We conclude that S<inf>CC</inf> and S<inf>FP</inf> are valuable indicators of the community-level sensitivities to these two pressures, and we discuss the limitations and assumptions that underly this and other trait-based approaches. We recommend wider usage of this kind of indicators, which could be applied globally to understand risks of marine communities to climate change and fishing.

This study was supported by the project VADAPES, funded by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge and by Horizon Europe Project B-USEFUL (User-Oriented Solutions for Improved Monitoring and Management of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Vulnerable European Seas), with additional funding from Innovate UK through the Horizon Europe Guarantee Scheme. We acknowledge the teams of the research vessels in DEMERSALES and MEDITS surveys funded by Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO, CSIC) and the European Union (EU) through the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) within the National Program of collection, management and use of data in the fisheries sector and support for scientific advice regarding the Common Fisheries Policy. The contract of Lucía López-López was financed through the ‘Juan de la Cierva Incorporación 2020’ fellowship [IJC2020-043235-I] funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the ‘NextGeneration EU/PRTR’. Authors also acknowledge the ICES WG-COMEDA and the COCOCHA project (Grant PID2019-110282RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033).

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