New research from UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries suggests that larger reef areas may help protect the Caribbean’s coral reef fish communities from the impacts of ocean warming.
New research from UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries suggests that larger reef areas may help protect the Caribbean’s coral reef fish communities from the impacts of ocean warming.
“We are seeing alterations to local reef fish populations due to warming ocean temperatures, particularly in those Caribbean countries that are closer to the equator, like Trinidad and Tobago, where commercially important fishes such as Cero and Northern red snapper are on the decline already,” said Ravi Maharaj, first author and PhD candidate at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.
The study looked at the size of reefs in the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) – estimated from satellite imagery – of nine Caribbean countries and assessed the impact of rising ocean temperatures on the fish that are most important to the local fisheries. The researchers examined how reef size may moderate such impacts.
Using sea water temperature and fisheries records going back to the 1970s, researchers found that the Caribbean Sea is warming, and fish that like cooler temperatures were decreasing in dominance in the catch. But they also found that the change in fish composition was slower in countries with larger coral reefs compared to countries with smaller coral reefs.
Read more at University of British Columbia
Image via Pixabay
