Netherlands: Long-term research shows herring arrive earlier in the Wadden Sea due to climate change

Due to the changing climate, young herring arrive in the Wadden Sea earlier and earlier in spring. That is shown in a new publication by NIOZ ecologists Mark Rademaker, Myron Peck, and Anieke van Leeuwen in Global Change Biology."The fact that we were able to demonstrate this was only due to very consistently—for more than 60 years—and continuously sampling the fish every spring and every fall with exactly the same fyke [net] every time," Rademaker says. "Recognizing this kind of change requires extreme precision and endurance."Since 1960, NIOZ, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, has been measuring the number and species of fish that swim in the Marsdiep, between Den Helder and Texel, day in and day out, using a standard fyke, in spring and fall. These measurements show that the peak of the number of young herring swimming into the Wadden Sea since 1982 comes at least two weeks earlier now."Such a calculation is difficult with a species of fish that swims in large ...