Predicting Impact of Climate Change on Marine Organisms

Previous model projections at the global scale suggest that the effects of marine climate change (CC) are expected to result in a loss in maximum potential catch in the tropics but a gain in high latitude region by 2050. Recently, ocean acidification (OA) is recognized as a major threat to marine ecosystems, and the problems become particularly daunting with the currently overfished ocean. However, it is not clear how OA would modify the previous projections that considered the effects of CC only, particularly with many organisms being overfished. In this study, using a global model that includes more than 1000 species of fishes and invertebrates, we investigate the combined impacts of CC, OA and overfishing on marine biodiversity and fisheries. Our findings suggest that the addition of OA effects may turn regions that were expected to be "winner" from CC into "loser" in terms of biodiversity and fisheries, resulting in a much bigger biodiversity and fisheries losses than previously projected. We also explore how rebuilding global fisheries may improve the adaptive capacity of marine species to the impacts of CC and OA.