SOS small pelagics: A safe operating space for small pelagic fish in the western Mediterranean Sea

Abstract Sustainable fishing practices must ensure human wellbeing by safeguarding the integrity of marine life-supporting systems. Unfortunately, a significant challenge to fisheries management is that sustainable levels can decline, often synergistically, co-occurring with climate-driven environmental stressors. Within one most impacted areas in world, and encompassing number highly targeted commercial species, small pelagic fish community western Mediterranean Sea has recently shown signs collapse. In this study, we identify worrying coincidence where hotspots for commercially valuable European sardine Sardina pilchardus anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus occur mostly affected climate change. To these areas, overlayed detailed, spatially explicit measurements pressure finest-scale maps cumulative change impacts onto species. According our results, doubly largely north-western Sea, affecting sardine. Reducing local stressors (i.e., pressure) may contribute maintain communities within “safe operating space” (SOS), they remain resilient Accordingly, redistribution and/or reduction intensity alleviate those already strategies benefit, therefore, from SOS concept spatial assessments provided study.