ISTOCK, JOHNNORTHHundreds of marine animal species living on North American continental shelves will be forced to shift their ranges further north as a result of climate change, according to a study published today (May 16) in PLOS ONE. Although the predicted moves vary substantially according to how much carbon is released into the atmosphere over the coming years, some species may have to migrate more than 1,000 kilometers to keep up with tolerable living conditions.
“We found a major effect of carbon emissions scenario on the magnitude of projected shifts in species habitat during the 21st century,” study coauthor James Morley of Rutgers University says in a statement. “Under a high carbon emissions future we anticipate that many economically important species will expand into new regions and decline in areas of historic abundance.”
To predict changes in the abiotic characteristics of North America’s Atlantic and Pacific continental shelves, the researchers ran 16 different models of ocean circulation that took into account various levels of future carbon emissions. Then, the team analyzed how the predicted changes in temperature would affect 686 fish and invertebrate species’ distributions.
The data suggest that the vast majority of species will move north under predicted climate ...
