Potential socioeconomic impacts from ocean acidification and climate change effects on Atlantic Canadian fisheries

‘with OA’ treatment tracked the ‘without OA’ treatment more closely, but were nonetheless seen to be somewhat lower throughout the simulations. Under the RCP 8.5 scenario the OA impacts were more pronounced than under the RCP 2.6 in all species (except eastern blue mussel) (Fig 6). Atlantic Canadian regional changes. Across the whole Atlantic Canadian region, change in the cumulative net landings in 2090 were anticipated to be relatively neutral across the seven assessed species, regardless of the climate scenario (Fig 7). The largest relative changes were predicted for species with the lowest total landing weights in 2000: American oyster, east- ern blue mussel and Stimpson’s surf clam all have changes exceeding 15% (positive for oyster and mussel, negative for clams) under RCP 8.5, but all have region-wide annual landings under 30,000 tonnes (Fig 7). Thus, relatively large percent changes resulted in comparatively small absolute changes in landings for these species. In terms of absolute change at the regional Fig 6. Comparison of model outputs with OA (red) and without OA (blue) effects through the century, under both climate scenarios (RCP 2.6 as solid lines, RCP 8.5 as dotted lines) for whole Atlantic Canadian EEZ. Values are relative changes in catch potential. Note different axes between sub-plots. (S1 Fig. contains relative changes in distribution for both ‘with OA’ and ‘without OA’ treatments). Lines represent multi-model medians from outputs of three earth system models (GFDL, IPSL, MPI). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226544.g006

OA and climate change impacts on Atlantic Canadian fisheries PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226544 January 10, 2020 14 / 29