Addressing the dichotomy of fishing and climate in fishery management with the FishClim model

The relative influence of fishing and Climate-Induced Environmental Change (CIEC) on long-term fluctuations in exploited fish stocks has been controversial1–3 because separating their contributions is difficult for two reasons. Firstly, there is in general, no estimation of CIEC for a pre-fishing period and secondly, the assessment of the effects of fishing on stocks has taken place at the same time as CIEC4. Here, we describe a new model we have called FishClim that we apply to North Sea cod from 1963 to 2019 to estimate how fishing and CIEC interact and how they both may affect stocks in the future (2020–2100) using CMIP6 scenarios5. The FishClim model shows that both fishing and CIEC are intertwined and can either act synergistically (e.g. the 2000–2007 collapse) or antagonistically (e.g. second phase of the gadoid outburst). Failure to monitor CIEC, so that fisheries management immediately adjusts fishing effort in response to environmentally-driven shifts in stock productivity, will therefore create a deleterious response lag that may cause the stock to collapse. We found that during 1963–2019, although the effect of fishing and CIEC drivers fluctuated annually, the pooled influence of fishing and CIEC on the North Sea cod stock was nearly equal at −55 and −45%, respectively. Consequently, the application of FishClim, which quantifies precisely the respective influence of fishing and climate, will help to develop better strategies for sustainable, long-term, fish stock management.