Human activities, climate changes affect marine populations

Abstract

California's coastal ocean is one of the most productive in the world. Better understanding of the annual changes in populations due to El Niños, and recent awareness of decade-to-decade widespread changes in the ocean and atmosphere, have improved the ability to project the effects of fishing and climate change on marine populations. On a smaller scale weekly changes in upwelling winds cause coastal currents to deliver planktonic larvae to the coasts in spatial patterns. Additional research is needed to reduce the uncertainty in population protection that allows political pressure to lead to overfishing and confounds recovery planning for endangered species such as salmon.