Ongoing global climate change causes changes in the species composition of marine ecosystems, especially in shallow coastal oceans. During evolution, animals have specialised on environmental conditions and are often very limited in their tolerance to environmental change.
In this context, fish species from the North Sea which experience large seasonal temperature fluctuations, are more tolerant to higher temperatures and display wider thermal windows than, for instance, fishes from polar regions living at constant low temperatures. The latter are able to grow and reproduce only within a very limited thermal tolerance window.
A new investigation, leaded by scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, reveals that a warming induced deficiency in oxygen uptake and supply to tissues is the key factor limiting the stock size of a fish species under heat stress.
The paper ‘Climate change affects marine fishes through the oxygen limitation of thermal tolerance’ is published on January 5, 2007 in the scientific journal Science.
aiw-bremerhaven.de: Press release
Camille Parmesan: Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change
Picture credit: Stephen Ausmus, ars.usda.gov
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