The importance of oxygen for explaining rapid shifts in a marine fish

Large-scale shifts in marine species biogeography have been a notable impact of climate change. An effective explanation of what drives these species shifts, as well as accurate predictions of where they might move, is crucial to effectively managing these natural resources and conserving biodiversity. While temperature has been implicated as a major driver of these shifts, physiological processes suggest that oxygen, prey, and other factors should also play important roles. We expanded upon previous temperature-based distribution models by testing whether oxygen, food web productivity, salinity, and scope for metabolic activity (the Metabolic Index) better explained the changing biogeography of Black Sea Bass (Centropristis striata) in the Northeast US. This species has been expanding further north over the past 15 years. We found that oxygen improved model performance beyond a simple consideration of temperature (Delta AIC = 799, Delta TSS = 0.015), with additional contributions from prey and salinity. However, the Metabolic Index did not substantially increase model performance relative to temperature and oxygen (Delta AIC = 0.63, Delta TSS = 0.0002). Marine species are sensitive to oxygen, and we encourage researchers to use ocean biogeochemical hindcast and forecast products to better understand marine biogeographic changes.