Significance Climate shocks are increasingly disruptive to global food systems, with far-reaching consequences for resource-based communities. Yet quantitative assessments of community impacts rarely account for economic connectivity between alternative resources. We show that patterns of resource use influence the sensitivity of US West Coast fishing communities to unprecedented fishery closures in the wake of a recent climate shock. Patterns of participation in commercial fisheries were significantly altered during the fishery closures, but rebounded to preexisting states after closures were lifted, indicating community-level resilience to this particular perturbation. Our study provides evidence that more complex networks of resource use buffer the impact of climate shocks, and reveals strategies that alter emergent patterns of resource use in affected fishing communities.