Ecosystem Recovery to Historical Targets Becomes Unattainable Under Modelled Fishing and Climate in the Barents Sea

Climate change and fisheries jointly shape the resilience of the Barents Sea marine ecosystem, yet the recovery of key fish populations to climate and anthropogenic disturbances requires further investigation. This study examines how fishing pressure and climate change, driven by the NEMO-MEDUSA Earth system model, influence the recovery times of Demersal and Planktivorous fish in the Barents Sea. We used the StrathE2EPolar end-to-end ecosystem model to simulate transient dynamics under increasing fishing pressure scenarios, and quantified recovery times for Demersal, Planktivorous, and ecosystem-wide groups relative to a shifting unfished baseline. Recovery times increased with both fishing intensity and climate change, by as much as 18 years for Demersal fish and 54 years for Planktivorous fish across all fishing scenarios. At the ecosystem level, recovery was constrained by the slow rebound of top predators, many of which experienced biomass collapse under climate change, preventing recovery to a shifting baseline. Our results suggest that fishing pressure in tandem with climate change substantially reduces ecosystem resilience, highlighting the importance of sustainable harvest strategies in a changing climate.