Tag : future

New Brunswick (New Jersey): According to a study, the warming of the oceans due to climate change will mean fewer productive fish species to catch in the future. The study was published in the journal, 'Proceedings of The Royal Society B'. The study presents a mixed picture of ocean health. Not only will large species and commercially important fisheries shift out of their historical ranges as the climate warms, but they will likely not be as abundant even in their new geographic ranges. For instance, a cod fisherman in the Atlantic might still find fish 200 years from now but in significantly fewer numbers. "What that suggests from a fisheries perspective is that while the species we fish today will be there tomorrow, they will not be there in the same abundance. In such a context, overfishing becomes easier because the population growth rates are low," said study co-author Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in Rutgers' Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources. "Warming coupled with food-web dynamics will be like putting marine biodiversity in a blender," he added. Previous studies of shifting habitat ranges focused on the direct impacts of climate change on individual species. While these "one-at-a-time" species projections offer insights into the composition of ocean communities in a warming world, they have largely failed to consider how food-web interactions will affect the pace of change. The new study looked at trophic interactions - the process of one species being nourished at the expense of another - and other food-web dynamics to determine how climate change affects species' ranges. Using sophisticated computer models, the researchers determined that predator-prey interactions cause many species, espec ...