An international team of scientists has found that global warming is threatening marine life in 70 percent of the world’s biodiverse oceans. This is reported in an article published in the journal Global Change Biology.
The disappearance of high biodiversity ecosystems is due to the fact that species living in these regions are usually poorly adapted to respond to large temperature changes, the researchers say.
Using the method of comparing past and future ocean warming extremes, the researchers mapped the ecosystems around the world that will be affected by future climate change. This helped determine the distances that plants and animals would have to travel to leave vulnerable areas. It turned out that in many cases this will require traveling long distances, migrating far beyond the regions where the species have evolved and adapted.
The most vulnerable marine communities contain most of the reef-forming coral species that provide livelihoods for millions of living organisms, as well as habitats for manatees.
