Major Habitat Loss Looms For Top Marine Predators Amid Climate Change

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A study of 12 species of highly migratory fish predators-including sharks, tuna, and billfish such as marlin and swordfish-finds that most of them will encounter widespread losses of suitable habitat and redistribution from current habitats in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean (NWA) and the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) by 2100. These areas are among the fastest-warming ocean regions and are projected to increase between 1-6C (+1-10F) by the end of the century, a sign of climate-driven changes in marine ecosystems.

In some cases, these iconic, and economically and ecologically important species, could lose upwards of 70% of suitable habitat by the end of the century, and in most cases, the impacts of these climate-induced changes are already observable.

The ongoing and projected effects of climate change highlight the urgent need to adaptively and proactively manage dynamic marine ecosystems," according to the study, Widespread habitat loss and redistribution of marine top predators in a changing ocean," published in the journal Science Advances.

[...] Scientists used three decades of satellite, oceanographic model, and in situ biological data to develop dynamic species distribution models to assess how climate change has already and will continue to impact the fish species in the NWA and GOM.

Our research demonstrates that climate-driven changes are happening now, not from projections of climate change, but based on observed empirical data from the last two decades. So while our findings do point to larger species shifts in the near term, it also clarifies the substantial changes in species distributions that have already occurred," said study co-author Rebecca Lewison. She is professor of biology and a conservation ecologist at the Coastal and Marine Institute at San Diego State University. She added that the research results highlight the importance of using NASA and other satellite data to understand how a changing ocean is impacting commercially important marine species like swordfish and tunas."

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