Boston Globe - Rising temperatures throw nature a curve

[YankeyMCC]

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The multitude of changes taking place in Narragansett Bay illustrates a critical lesson as the world warms: Large ecological change may come from the smallest break in the food chain.
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The bay's winter warming roughly parallels a 4.4-degree rise in New England's average winter air temperature since 1970, a trend scientists ascribe, at least in part, to the release of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from power plants, vehicles, and factories. Scientists deduce that the warming of Narragansett Bay is tied to this trend because they know that estuaries and bays are heavily influenced by air temperatures. Other partially enclosed coastal waters, such as Woods Hole and Long Island Sound, have also warmed during the same period, giving researchers confidence the warming in Narragansett Bay is not an anomaly.
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Almost 40 years of such weekly samples gave researchers one of their first hints that the bay was changing. A late-winter phytoplankton bloom long formed the foundation of the bay's food web. As days got longer and sunlight increased, the bloom would grow to cover almost the entire 25-mile-long bay. By early spring, the bloom would die naturally, and organic debris would settle to the bay's bottom, where creatures such as worms would feed on it and in turn become meals for fish such as winter flounder.

In the 1980s, the winter bloom stopped growing as large, and by the late 1990s it was all but gone.
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At the start of this decade, Rhode Island fishery biologists realized that other bottom-dwelling fish were disappearing from Narragansett Bay, too, including species no fishermen wanted: hogchokers, oyster toadfish, and grubbies. That meant that overfishing could not be the only reason, and persuaded researchers that the bay's temperature rise was probably driving the decline. In addition, scientists noticed an increase in species that like warm water, such as summer flounder, black sea bass, scup, and squid. There aren't fewer fish in Narragansett Bay overall, but the players have changed.

And some fishermen say the rules about catching them need to change too. "Global warming is changing habits in the bay, and fishing quotas have to be adjusted to deal with it," said Richard Fuka, president of the Rhode Island Fishermen's Alliance. Fuka said state officials need to relax limits for species that are becoming more abundant.
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If Narragansett Bay continues warming at the same pace, water temperatures could climb nearly another 4 degrees by the end of the century. While scientists say the bay is not going to die, its ecology will continue to evolve. For fishermen, that means uncertainty, and that can translate to lost income. "A fisherman's logbook is like a set calendar, things always happen within a week of when it happened before," Fuka said.

That is what fishermen base their livelihood on, he said. "But now, it's like having a misguided calendar."
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/13/rising_temperatures_throw_nature_a_curve/?page=1