Many commonly eaten fish will soon disappear. The problem is the warming of the oceans due to climate change, which hinders their ability to adapt and survive.
A new study shows that several species of commercial fish, including anchovy, herring and sardine, are facing imminent extinction due to climate change. Scientists have published their findings in the journal Nature Climate Changе.
As the temperature of the world’s oceans rises faster than ever, fish quickly degrade and die in the struggle to survive. The authors of the study note that the situation is dangerous not only for fish populations, but also for humans. The problem of climate change will also worsen the food crisis – the commercial species that people are used to eating will become rare or even die out in the coming decades, scientists explain.
Warming water is a double blow to fish, as they not only force them to evolve to a smaller size, but also reduce their ability to move to a more suitable environment.
Professor Chris Venditti, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading and co-author of the study,
The study, by Chilean and British scientists, used a statistical analysis of a large dataset of globally distributed fish species to study their evolution over the past 150 million years. B
It focused on the Clupeiforms, a highly diverse group of fish found throughout the world. It includes such important fish species as anchovies, Atlantic herring, Japanese sardine, Pacific herring and South American sardine. However, the results matter for all species.
Until now, fish have only had to deal with a maximum increase in average ocean temperatures of about 0.8 ° C per millennium. This is much lower than the current rate of warming of 0.18 ° C in the decade since 1981.
