Climate change 'may shrink fish'

 

 
Fish body size is related to the water's temperature and oxygen levels, says the team
 

Fish species are expected to shrink

in size by up to 24% because of global warming, say scientists.

Researchers modelled the impact of rising temperatures on more than 600

species between 2001 and 2050.

Warmer waters could decrease ocean oxygen levels and significantly reduce

fish body weight.

The scientists argue that failure to control greenhouse gas emissions will

have a greater impact on marine ecosystems than previously thought.

Previous research has suggested that changing ocean temperatures would impact

both the distribution and the reproductive abilities of many species of fish.

This new work suggests that fish size would also be heavily impacted.

The researchers built a model to see how fish would react to lower levels of

oxygen in the water. They used data from one of the higher emissions

scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Warming the fish

Although this data projects relatively small changes in temperatures at the

bottom of the oceans, the resulting impacts on fish body size are "unexpectedly

large" according to the paper.