Marine Life Reacts Faster to Warming Than Land Species

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-04/marine-life-reacts-faster-to-warming-than-land-species.html


Gentoo penguins are seen on the shore of Deception Island, Antarctica.

Species that depend on the sea are reacting more quickly to global warming than land-based life, according to a study in scientific journal Nature Climate Change, with implications for fisheries and food supplies.

Areas occupied by marine species including fish, corals and plankton are moving by an average of 72 kilometers (45 miles) a decade, typically toward the poles, the study by researchers at 17 institutions in 8 countries said today. That’s more than 10 times the 6.1 kilometer rate that land creatures are shifting.

Marine environments face a range of changes brought on by the rising carbon emissions that scientists blame for global warming. Arctic sea ice is melting at record rates, while the carbon dissolved in the oceans is causing acidity to rise, harming corals and shellfish. The latest analysis will have implications for fisheries, an author of the paper said.

“If the food a fish is eating is moving at a different pace, then the fish and their prey aren’t arriving at the same point at the same time,” Pippa Moore, a lecturer in aquatic biology at Aberystwyth University in Wales said in a telephone interview. “That has implications for the abundance of species and it will undoubtedly affect our food supplies and the species we’re used to seeing at our shores.”