Katherine Mills, Ph.D.

Research

Elijah Miller

Approaches for adaptation and resilience of marine fisheries in rapidly warming ecosystems

Katherine Mills evaluated strategies and developed tools that fisheries around the world can use to effectively adapt and enhance resilience to climate change while conserving the stocks they rely on.

Climate change is already having a significant impact on the marine environment. For example, warming waters have been associated with shifting species distributions, changing where fish and mobile invertebrates are found. Such shifts have important implications for global fisheries, as stocks enter new habitats, fishing grounds, and management jurisdictions. Rising ocean temperatures are also altering the timing of natural events, such as spawning, which can reduce the effectiveness of fishery management measures and the success of wild-capture fisheries.

Mills took a multiscale approach to identify strategies and support planning for climate-resilient fisheries. In the Northeast United States, she analyzed distribution shifts by fish and invertebrate species and explored how different life history archetypes respond to warming waters. Using a population simulation model, Mills evaluated fish population responses to various climate and harvest scenarios to identify effective climate adaptation strategies and management approaches.  She also co-led a global working group to synthesize insights into ecological, socioeconomic, and governance attributes that support climate resilience in marine fisheries and to outline resilience pathways in diverse fishery case studies. This work led to the development of a tool to support climate resilience assessment and planning in marine fisheries, and it is being further advanced through an Ocean Decade program, Fisheries Strategies for Changing Oceans and Resilient Ecosystems by 2030 (FishSCORE).

To learn more about Katherine Mills, read her bio.

See the full list of 2018 Pew marine fellows.