Smaller wins, bigger losses: asymmetric impacts of climate change on preferred thermal habitat of temperate lake fish

Climate change is reshaping aquatic ecosystems and affecting fish populations. Our study focused on tracking the "preferred days" for lake fish species—days when lake temperatures align with their preferred thermal conditions. We found that cold-water species are losing preferred days more significantly than warm-water species are gaining them from 1980~2021. This imbalance is not a result of geographic distribution differences among species but is tied to the seasonal pattern in lake temperatures and the decreasing temperature differences within lakes. This uneven impact poses a challenge for fisheries management, indicating that the potential advantages of an increase in warm-water species might not fully compensate for the losses in cold-water species. This emphasizes the intricate challenges climate change presents to fisheries management.

Primary Presenter: Luoliang Xu, University of Wisconsin-Madison (lxu287@wisc.edu)

Authors:

Craig Paukert, University of Missouri  (paukertc@missouri.edu)

Gretchen Hansen, University of Minnesota  (ghansen@umn.edu)

Lyndsie Wszola, University of Missouri  (lyndsiewszola5@gmail.com)

Michael Verhoeven, University of Minnesota  (verh0064@umn.edu)

Paul Frater, University of Wisconsin-Madison  (paul.frater@wisconsin.gov)

Robert Ladwig, Aarhus University  (rladwig@ecos.au.dk)

Zachary Feiner, University of Wisconsin-Madison  (zsfeiner@wisc.edu)

Olaf Jensen, University of Wisconsin-Madison  (olaf.p.jensen@gmail.com)