Autonomous adaptation to climate-driven changes in species distribution in a global marine hotspot
Christine Crawford1, Hannah Fogarty1,2, Stewart Frusher2, Alistair J Hobday2,4, Sarah Jennings2,3, John Keane1, Emma Lee2,5, Catriona MacLeod1,2, Craig Mundy1, Emily Ogier1,2, Prof Gretta Pecl, Jemima Stuart-Smith1, Sean Tracey1, Ingrid van Putten4
1Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Sandy Bay, Australia, 2Centre for Marine Socioecology, Sandy Bay, Australia, 3Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, Sandy Bay, Australia, 4CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Battery Point, Australia, 5Centre for Social Impact at Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia
While governments and natural resource managers grapple with how to respond to climatic changes, many marine-dependent individuals, organisations and communities in fast-changing regions of the world are already adjusting their behaviour to accommodate these. However, we have little information on the nature of such ‘bottom up’ autonomous adaptations. The east coast of Tasmania, Australia, is one of the world’s fastest warming marine regions with extensive climate-driven changes in biodiversity already observed. The region supports a wide range of marine based activities, including production of high value wild catch seafood and aquaculture, and high levels of participation in recreational fishing, with nearly 30% of the population participating annually. Already, major southward range extensions in the distributions of almost 100 species have been documented, and large contractions in others, including species that form critical habit for many other species. We present and compare examples of autonomous adaptations from marine users of the region to provide insights into factors that may have constrained or facilitated the available range of autonomous adaptation options, and discuss potential interactions with governmental planned adaptations. We aim to support effective adaptation by identifying the suite of changes that marine users are making largely without government or management intervention, i.e. ‘bottom up’ adaptations, to better understand these and their potential interactions with formal adaptation strategies.
Biography: To be confirmed