Life histories determine divergent population trends for fishes under climate warming

Most marine fish species express life-history changes across temperature gradients, such as faster growth, earlier maturation, and higher mortality at higher temperature. However, such climate-driven effects on life histories and population dynamics remain unassessed for most fishes. For 332 Indo-Pacific fishes, we show positive effects of temperature on body growth (but with decreasing asymptotic length), reproductive rates (including earlier age-at-maturation), and natural mortality for all species, with the effect strength varying among habitat-related species groups. Reef and demersal fishes are more sensitive to temperature changes than pelagic and bathydemersal fishes. Using a life table, we show that the combined changes of life histories upon increasing temperature tend to facilitate population growth for slow life-history populations, but reduce it for fast life-history ones. Within our data, lower proportions (25–30%) of slow life-history fishes but greater proportions of fast life-history fishes (42–60%) show declined population growth rates under 1 °C warming. Together, these findings suggest prioritizing sustainable management for fast life-history species.

Hui-Yu Wang, Sheng-Feng Shen, Ying-Shiuan Chen, Yun-Kae Kiang, Mikko Heino