New Classification Schemes Reveal MPAs Don’t Buffer Climate Driven Fish Community Shifts

MPAs have long been a popular tool to conserve marine resources; however research on their ability to mitigate climate impacts is limited. This is compounded by the fact that efficiently quantifying this ecological change is challenging, leading to a disconnect between real-time community composition and management action. Our work created a new thermal classification scheme of fish species using biogeographic data and expert opinion to track differential responses to climatic events. A recent warm water marine heatwave in 2014 spurred shifts the fish community structure around the Channel Islands, California with warm water species’ density increasing and cool water species’ density decreasing. MPAs did not buffer or mitigate these shifts in community composition. One possible explanation is that non-targeted species were responsible for the majority of the community change and MPAs’ removal of fishing pressure do not effectively help these species. Looking forward, managers need to use MPAs in conjunction with other management methodologies to conserve resources in the face of climate.