Global warming threatens the persistence of Mediterranean brown trout

By A. Almodóvar, G. Nicola, Daniel Ayllón, Benigno Elvira. 2012

201 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Current climate change exacerbates the environmental restrictions on temperate species inhabiting low latitude edges of their geographical ranges. We examined how temperature variations due to current and future climate change are likely to affect populations’ persistence of stream‐dwelling brown trout Salmo trutta at the vulnerable southern periphery of its range. Analysis of 33 years of air temperature data (1975–2007) by time‐series models indicated a significant upward trend and a pronounced shift in air temperature around 1986‐1987. This warming is associated with an ongoing population decline of brown trout, most likely caused by a loss of suitable thermal habitat in lower latitudes since the 1980s. Population decrease may not be attributed to physical habitat modification or angler pressure, as carrying capacity remained stable and populations were not overexploited. We developed regional temperature models, which predicted that unsuitable thermal habitat for brown trout increased by 93% when comparing climate conditions between 1975–1986 and 1993–2004. Predictions from climate envelope models showed that current climate change may be rendering unsuitable 12% of suitable thermal habitat each decade, resulting in an overall population decrease in the lower reaches of around 6% per year. Furthermore, brown trout catches markedly decreased 20% per year. Projections of thermal habitat loss under the ecologically friendly B2 SRES scenario showed that brown trout may lose half of their current suitable habitat within the study area by 2040 and become almost extinct by 2100. In parallel to the upstream movement of brown trout thermal habitat, warm water species are increasing their relative abundance in salmonid waters. Empirical evidence was provided of how current climate change threatens some of the most healthy native brown trout populations in Southern Europe and how forthcoming climate change is expected to further decrease the conservation status of the species.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d09628a7d46c5061f608d875f650d4fada900e5e

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Citations in the corpus

Climate‐induced changes in the distribution of freshwater fish: observed and predicted trends (2013, background): “First, the thermal habitats of several native salmonids have already been reported to have been affected by the recent rise in temperature (Hari et al., 2006; Isaak et al., 2010; Almodóvar et al., 2012).”
Fish and mussels: Importance of fish for freshwater mussel conservation (2018, background): “According to Almodóvar, Nicola, and Benigno (2012), warming will lead to the widespread decline of brown trout (Salmo trutta, Salmonidae) across Iberian Peninsula, an area that represents the southern limit of the species distribution.”
Parasite infection and decreased thermal tolerance: impact of proliferative kidney disease on a wild salmonid fish in the context of climate change (2017, background): “Earlier studies have documented declines of juvenile brown trout and juvenile salmon related to increased summer temperature and reduced dis- charge (Jonsson & Jonsson 2009; Almod ovar et al. 2012), but climate-driven changes may have severe consequences on host populations also via the emergence of”
Do stream fish track climate change? Assessing distribution shifts in recent decades (2013, methodology): “To tackle this issue, we conducted separated analyses on a restricted dataset in order to assess whether potential variation in the sampling success had in fact impaired our ability to detect range shifts. Following the general approach developed by K é ry and Plattner (2007), we evaluated if the me”
Forecasting fish distribution along stream networks: brown trout (Salmo trutta) in Europe (2013, background): “An examination of 33 years of past air temperatures for the lower latitudinal limits of S. trutta’s distribution in Europe indicated that the unsuitable thermal habitats have increased by 93% and will expand by 12% per decade (B2 scenario; Almod ovar et al., 2011).”
InSTREAM-Gen: Modelling eco-evolutionary dynamics of trout populations under anthropogenic environmental change (2016, background): “…our predicted population declines were lower than we would have expected in the absence of evolution, taking into account that the study population is projected to experience systematic stressful temperature conditions for feeding and growth from year 2050 onwards (see Almodóvar et al., 2012).”