HotFish – Sustaining marine biodiversity under climate change

Climate change and anthropogenic disturbances cause major losses in biodiversity and threaten important ecosystem services. Marine protected areas (MPAs) have become a key component of conservation and fisheries management to alleviate these pressures. New, ambitious area targets for MPA coverage, in combination with ongoing environmental change, require sophisticated spatial planning to achieve ecologically coherent MPA networks. However, there is a substantial knowledge gap in spatial planning concerning how to design MPA networks that account for the distribution and connectivity of habitats under future scenarios of disturbance and climate change. We will develop new models of future species distributions and seascape connectivity to assess the ecological coherence of the coastal Swedish Baltic Sea MPA network. 

This is what we want to achieve

We aim to: 

1. spatially model species distributions and population connectivity under projected scenarios of ocean temperature and salinity change,
2. evaluate how well the current MPA network protects biodiversity under future scenarios, and
3. analyse how the MPA network can be expanded and strengthened to maximise biodiversity under these scenarios. Results will be communicated to stakeholders to aid the managers in their spatial planning to support biodiversity conservation and sustainable blue economy.

This is what we are doing 

The HotFish project uses fish distribution and abundance data collected in surveys and environmental monitoring in the Swedish shallow coastal areas to develop species distribution models and seascape connectivity models. Presence/absence data is used together with current and future environmental predictors to project current and future distributions of important commercial fish species. Based on these models, the project will assess the ecological coherence of the Swedish Baltic Sea MPA network under future scenarios of climate change. Ecological coherence meaning that that MPAs should be ecologically representative and well connected. We will also analyse how the network can be efficiently expanded to meet conservation targets with a focus on connectivity and representativity of key coastal species, including vegetation and fish. Following a conservation prioritization analysis of the Swedish Baltic Sea coastline, the HotFish project will be able to give guidance for expanding the MPA network to protect vulnerable species, increase ecosystem resilience to disturbance and help restore the region’s marine biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Team HotFish

We are a diverse group of researchers and a PhD student with different expertise in the unit of marine conservation and spatial planning at the Department of Aquatic Resources, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.