Researchers at the University of Bristol in England have discovered that populations of freshwater fish that live in cold regions, such as at the Earth’s poles, are evolving at a faster rate than those that live in warmer waters, such as those near the Earth’s poles. to the equator. The discovery was published on Monday (9) in the scientific journal PNAS.
THE study showed that large migratory species such as Atlantic salmon are thriving as rising temperatures open up new habitats at the polar edge. The work indicates that climate change may be leading to changes in the distribution of freshwater species, so these animals are trying to track down thermally suitable places to live.
“A common biological response to climate warming in marine and terrestrial habitats is that populations are increasing on the polar side of species’ ranges as new environments are generated, and populations are decreasing on the equatorial side of species’ ranges. species, as conditions become very hot,” explains Martin Genner, co-author of the study in a press release.
To carry out the analysis, the researchers used a dataset of more than 10,000 time series, including more than 600 species. The team linked this information, collected between 1958 and 2019, with temperature data from the same period. In all sampled locations, the waters warmed by 0.21 °C per decade.
The researchers found that the observed population trends were consistent with expected patterns of climate warming, particularly in species with larger body sizes, higher trophic levels, river-sea migratory behavior and wider distributions.
Species following this trend include brown trout and coarse fish species familiar to many anglers, such as European perch and northern pike. Additionally, positive abundance responses to warming were likely at higher elevations, where conditions tend to be cooler, the study found.
“These findings indicate that projected future warming will likely lead to widespread changes in riparian community structure, including declines in abundance at the trailing edge of species distributions,” explains Genner.
The team’s next step is to understand more about the importance of climate change on the size of freshwater fish populations compared to other stressors such as pollution, habitat modification and fishing.
“Our study showed how warming waters are impacting freshwater fish in rivers, which are rich in biodiversity and traditionally important for cultures around the world,” comments Genner. “We hope that shedding light on how climate change may affect freshwater fish will lead to positive actions to enable their conservation and sustainable use.”
This content was originally published in Climate change impacts freshwater fish species, says study on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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