Climate change impacts to Western Rock Lobster recruitment

Submitted by:

A Industry representative (Western Australia)

QUESTION

How might climate change, and changes to the Leeuwin current, affect recruitment of Western Rock Lobster?

ANSWER 1

By: Dr Tim Langlois

While research on this topic is ongoing, recent studies have reported a trend of decreasing success between settlement and recruitment of lobster in the northern end of their range (Mastrantonis et al. 2025).

Another two studies by Kolbusz and colleagues in 2021 and 2022 find that stronger Leeuwin currents typically result in stronger settlement, so if the Leeuwin current weakens with climate change this will likely be bad for recruitment.

While the outlook for Western Rock Lobster recruitment under a weakening Leeuwin Current is concerning, long-term monitoring programs and advances in larval dispersal modelling are giving managers better tools to anticipate poor recruitment years, protect key nearshore habitats, and adjust harvest settings before populations come under pressure.

Other relevant information: https://www.frdc.com.au/news/was-mystery-missing-lobsters and associated project https://www.frdc.com.au/project/2019-159

References:
Mastrantonis, Stanley, Simon de Lestang, Tim Langlois, Ben Radford, Claude Spencer, John Fitzhardinge, and Sharyn M. Hickey. 2025. “Disconnect between Settlement and Fishery Recruitment Driven by Decadal Changes in Nearshore Habitats.” The Science of the Total Environment 968 (178785): 178785.

Kolbusz, Jessica, Charitha Pattiaratchi, Sarath Wijeratne, Tim Langlois, and Simon de Lestang. 2022. “Finding Lobsters: Investigating a Period of Unusually Low Settlement of Panulirus Cygnus by Using Larval Dispersal Modelling.” Marine and Freshwater Research 74 (1): 20–38.

Kolbusz, Jessica, Simon de Lestang, Tim Langlois, and Charitha Pattiaratchi. 2021. “Changes in Panulirus Cygnus Settlement Along Western Australia Using a Long Time Series.” Frontiers in Marine Science 8: 718.