Trends in Fishery Ecosystem Stability in the East China Sea under Dual Pressures of Fishing and Global Warming

Fishery ecosystem stability, requiring balanced biomass and biodiversity, is vital for sustainability but is being threatened by fishing and global warming. Here, we developed an Ecopath model for the East China Sea (ECS) with 45 functional groups and constructed an Ecosim model with 15 scenarios, using fishing effort (FE) and sea surface temperature (SST) as driving variables. The resistance resilience stability (RRS) index was proposed to quantify the comprehensive changes in total biomass and stability of the ECS under dual pressures from 2000 to 2100. SST increase led to biomass declines eight to 12 times greater than FE increase, though 63.06% of economic species were negatively affected by rising FE. Notably, several key economic species may face the risk of extinction by the end of the century under a 10% FE increase and 4.0 °C SST rise. This will pose a significant disturbance to the ecosystem stability. However, our results suggest that reducing FE to 50% of current levels and limiting SST rise to within 1.5 °C could effectively prevent a further biomass reduction and keep the RRS index within reasonable limits. The research contributes to a quantitative analysis of ecosystem stability under dual pressures, providing a scientific basis for sustainable fishery resource management.