Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2021
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster E12
Höfundar / Authors: Steven Campana
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland
Kynnir / Presenter: Steven Campana
Fish populations are often painted as being at the mercy of climate change, with consequences that are always negative. But is that necessarily true? The widely-accepted Porfolio Effect posits that the diversity of possible responses (a population’s “portfolio”) is reduced as populations become increasingly synchronized by adverse climate events, in turn reducing the resilience of the populations and species to environmental change. On the basis of 74,662 sclerochronological measurements and a century-scale reconstruction of the growth dynamics of one of the most abundant north temperate marine fish species, we have detected a within-population growth synchrony that increases during optimal conditions and diversifies under poor conditions when a broader portfolio is required. This effect appears to buffer populations to changing climate and growth conditions, and may have been in place for at least 500 years.