Tropical fish moving south as oceans heat up
Canberra: A joint research between Australia's University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Adelaide uncovered that the country's tropical fish have been migrating south as sea temperatures rise. The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B biological journal on Wednesday, built upon 20 years of data monitoring the abundance of fish populations along Australia's east coast, Xinhua news agency reported. "We showed very strong patterns of these fish being seen, more often and more species, as the waters in New South Wales (NSW) warm up due to climate change," Professor Ivan Nagelkerken, marine ecologist from the University of Adelaide told Xinhua on Wednesday. Nagelkerken said that at the beginning of the 20-year data set species of tropical fish were in the single digits off the NSW's coast, and now they observed over 100 species. He said the impacts of this mass migration would be far reaching and cripple across ecosystems and, indirectly, Australia's relationship with the ocean. As tropical fish inhabit waters further south, they are likely to displace local species and also struggle themselves to survive year-round. "The tropical fish species are able to invade temperate waters, but during the winter by far the majority of them will die off because the winters are still too cold."
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