What is it about?
Our study showcases an approach to assess nutrient management decision-making in aquatic ecosystems. By combining fisheries data with reconstructed nutrient loads and hypoxic extent during the past century, we demonstrate why nutrient abatement plans designed to curtail Lake Erie hypoxia appear too restrictive in today’s climate yet may be insufficient in the future. Beyond illustrating how nutrient management can cause water quality–fisheries tradeoffs that can vary with climate change, we offer a rare example of nutrient-driven hypoxia shaping long-term fisheries harvest dynamics in a large ecosystem. Ultimately, our study highlights why adaptive ecosystem–based management that uses simple predictive models to assess tradeoffs between management priorities over long timescales can help sustain valued services in ecosystems experiencing change.
Featured Image
Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This is one of the first times we have shown the effects of hypoxia (dad zones) on fisheries. In our case study on Lake Erie, we showed a trade-off where some fisheries benefit from the nutrient loads that cause hypoxia but others are negatively affected. This creates a wicked problem that can only be addressed through adaptive ecosystem-based management.
Perspectives
This is the first time that a century of fisheries data is married with a reconstruction of the phosphorus loads and models of dead zones in Lake Erie to show that there are trade-offs to be made between water quality and fish but also among fisheries.
Professor Emeritus Donald Scavia
University of Michigan Systems
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Water quality–fisheries tradeoffs in a changing climate underscore the need for adaptive ecosystem–based management, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2322595121.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
