ScienceDaily (May 20, 2011) — Australian scientists have reported the first known detrimental impact of southern hemisphere ocean warming on a fish species.
Banded morwong. (Credit: Rick Stuart-Smith, University of Tasmania)
The findings of a study published in Nature Climate Change indicate negative effects on the growth of a long-lived south-east Australian and New Zealand inshore species — the banded morwong.
Scientific monitoring since 1944 by CSIRO at Maria Island, off the east coast of Tasmania, showed that surface water temperatures in the Tasman Sea have risen by nearly 2°C over the past 60 years. This warming, one of the most rapid in the southern hemisphere oceans, is due to globally increasing sea-surface temperatures and local effects caused by southward extension of the East Australian Current.
“Generally, cold-blooded animals respond to warming conditions by increasing growth rates as temperatures rise,” CSIRO marine ecologist Dr Ron Thresher, a co-author of the study with colleagues from the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, said.