• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Don’t Attend COP 28 Unless You’re There to Help, Figueres Tells Oil and Gas September 21, 2023
Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote September 20, 2023
Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds September 20, 2023
Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP September 20, 2023
‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak September 19, 2023
Next
Prev

Hotter water leaves smaller and less mobile fish

August 18, 2021
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

The catch with warming oceans is that there’ll be less of a catch. Smaller and less mobile fish will leave less to eat.

LONDON, 18 August, 2021 − Climate change could be about to get the world’s tastiest fish into hot water. The double jeopardy of global heating and overfishing could already be resulting in smaller and less mobile fish, turning sardines and herring, anchovies and pilchards into ever-smaller servings.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

It has happened before: a new study of the evolution of fish species over the past 150 million years has found clear evidence of the ups and downs of time: as the ocean temperatures rise, fish tend to get smaller and travel less.

“Warming waters are a double whammy for fish, as they not only cause them to evolve to a smaller size, but also reduce their ability to move to more suitable environments,” said Chris Venditti, of the University of Reading, UK.

“Our research supports the theory that fish will get smaller as oceans warm under climate change, but reveals the worrying news that they will also not be able to evolve to cope as efficiently as first thought.

“This has serious implications for all fish and our food security”

“With sea temperatures rising faster than ever, fish will very quickly get left behind in evolutionary terms and struggle to survive.”

Professor Venditti and colleagues in Chile and Peru report in the journal Nature Climate Change that they applied subtle statistical techniques to evidence of fish evolution amassed in an international database called The Fish Tree of Life to learn about the link between temperature and size in one seafaring order, the Clupeiforms.

This group embraces both Atlantic and Pacific herring, the Japanese and South American pilchard, the anchovy and so on. But what is true for one order is likely to be true for almost all fish: warmer oceans mean more stress.

And stress is on the way. Over the last 150 million years, fish have had to adjust to changing temperatures, but only at rates of around 0.8°C per thousand years. Since 1981, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the seas have been warming at 0.18°C per decade.

Evolution at risk

So the finding supports what biologists already know: that animals confronted with higher temperatures tend to evolve to smaller sizes.

It’s not as if fish were not already feeling the heat. As waters warm, their capacity for dissolved oxygen dwindles. Spawning becomes more problematic. Migration becomes more urgent, but for smaller creatures with lower energy reserves also more difficult.

In the world’s traditional fishing grounds, overall catch sizes are shrinking: so too are the sizes of individual fish. And, the latest research suggests, warming waters could limit the capacity to evolve to new species that can adapt to changing conditions.

“This has serious implications for all fish and our food security,” Professor Venditti said, “as many of the species we eat could become increasingly scarce or even non-existent in decades to come.” − Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
53
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
67
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
34

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

UN Climate Change/flickr

BREAKING: Don’t Attend COP 28 Unless You’re There to Help, Figueres Tells Oil and Gas

September 21, 2023
404
Kristoferb/Wikimedia Commons

Canadians Could Save $10.4B, Cut Climate Pollution by Replacing Central Air with Heat Pumps

August 28, 2023
810
/Piqusels

‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak

September 19, 2023
469
Asurnipal/wikimedia commons

Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP

September 20, 2023
171
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 21, 2023
592
Rennett Stowe/flickr

‘I’ve Been Ghosted,’ Rural Mayor Says, as Alberta Towns Push Back on Renewables Moratorium

September 8, 2023
1.9k

Recent Posts

Rewat Wannasuk/Pexels

Virtual Power Plants Could Cut Peak Demand 20%, Save U.S. Grid $10B Per Year

September 20, 2023
95
Jeremy Bezanger/Unsplash

Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds

September 20, 2023
62
Wesley Fryer/flickr

Smart Thermostats Boost Grid Stability Amid Intense Heat

September 20, 2023
45
Cullen328/wikimedia commons

Manufactured Housing Could Dent the Affordable Housing Crunch with Energy-Efficient Designs

September 20, 2023
120
Mr Renewables/Wikipedia

Californians Fight for New Community Solar Plan

September 20, 2023
106
Plug'n Drive/Wikimedia Commons

Rural Carshares Ensure EV Push Leaves No One Behind

September 20, 2023
39
Next Post

Oblivion awaits insects on which food crops rely

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
The Energy Mix - Energy Central
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}