Climate change and warmer oceans threaten global reef ecosystems
Ocean life on reef ecosystems is at risk of "tropicalisation", due to rising sea temperatures as a result of global warming, according to research by Australia’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. Scientists said warmer waters would encourage fish, which perform better as predators in such conditions, to hunt in regions further from the equator that are home to large invertebrates such as crabs and lobsters, putting a delicate ecological balance in jeopardy. The study's lead author Professor Graham Edgar said tropicalisation had already begun in southeastern Australia and Tasmania but had not yet affected New Zealand.

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Climate change and warmer oceans are likely to change reef ecosystems worldwide, reducing the diversity of invertebrates such as crabs, lobsters and sea urchins, a latest Australia-led research has found.









As the oceans get warmer, fish, which seem to be better predators in warmer waters, will extend their range from the equator to feed in colder latitudes where the number of large invertebrates is higher, Australia’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies said in a media release on Thursday.

The findings were made using data collected by a research team under the institute, which is based at the University of Tasmania.









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“As fish extend their range further from the equator with warming water, their advantage as predators will affect the abundance and diversity of large mobile invertebrates,” the institute quoted the study’s lead author, Professor Graham Edgar, as saying.









“Broad changes will likely spread across the ecosystem, affecting human activities such as fishing.”

The “tropicalisation” of marine life is already happening in southeastern Australia and Tasmania, “but similar effects have not yet been detected in New Zealand,” he said.

The southern island state of Tasmania exports much of Australia’s seafood, including crustacean and mollusk products, to Asian consumers, industry figures showed.

Source: Xinhua