News and publications

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A recent Ghoti paper highlights the urgent need for Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) to adapt to climate change. Using South Pacific albacore tuna as a case study, it identifies four priorities: understanding climate-driven biological shifts, improving data collection, refining CPUE modelling, and providing adaptive, robust scientific advice. Strengthening these areas will help RFMOs manage transboundary fish stocks sustainably in a warming ocean.

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Australia’s record-hot oceans have driven extreme weather, from floods and cyclones to mass coral bleaching and toxic algal blooms, showing how warming seas are reshaping both climate and ecosystems.

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Editor’s summary
Global warming is causing substantial, rapid changes in our oceans. Attempts to adapt to these changes have already involved a host of marine-climate interventions, but to what effect? Morrison et al. reviewed the evidence and concluded that the marine governance systems meant to ensure that climate goals remain achievable and that societal and ecosystem risks are minimized have failed to keep pace with mitigation efforts. Intervention-specific principles need to be embedded within governance at all levels to avoid the worst risks associated with deploying new marine-climate interventions at scale. —Jesse Smith

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In response to South Australia’s devastating toxic algal bloom, scientists have released a seven-point plan urging urgent action, including $10 million for impact research, ecosystem restoration, emissions cuts, and a disaster-response framework. The bloom, linked to climate change, has killed hundreds of marine species and prompted a Senate inquiry and $28 million in federal and state funding.

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This study assessed how six core messages about climate change — (1) ‘It’s real’; (2) ‘It’s us’; (3) ‘Experts agree’; (4) ‘It’s bad’; (5) ‘Others care’; and (6) ‘There’s hope’ —influence public attitudes and behaviors. The authors found that all six messages strongly predicted support for climate action, suggesting they can be powerful tools for effective climate communication.

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This study explores how government incentives have created a commercial fishery to deliberately overfish an invasive urchin species, protecting kelp ecosystems. The approach balances exploitation and conservation, offering a novel model for managing climate-driven species expansions.

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From April 2023 to March 2024, global ocean surface temperatures remained at record highs, surpassing the previous 2015–2016 record by an average of 0.25 °C — an event estimated to occur only once every 512 years under current warming trends. Climate models confirm such extreme temperature jumps are possible due to human-driven global warming and suggest ocean temperatures will likely return to the long-term warming trend following this exceptional event.

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Editor’s summary
Assessment of the status of fisheries stocks is a key component of their management. Although there has been much debate around how to do fishery assessments, there has been a general belief that estimates are roughly accurate. Edgar et al. used publicly available data on 230 of the best-known fisheries species to test whether stock biomass estimates made in the year of the estimate were as accurate as specifically calculated hindcast models (see the Perspective by Froese and Pauly). They found that, especially in overfished species, historical estimates were higher than later estimates, indicating the presence of excessively positive assessments of stock status. —Sacha Vignieri