Climate change can impact the pattern of marine biodiversity through changes in species' distributions. However, global studies on climate change impacts on ocean biodiversity have not been performed so far. Our paper aims to investigate the global patterns of such impacts by projecting the distributional ranges of a sample of 1066 exploited marine fish and invertebrates for 2050 using a newly developed dynamic bioclimate envelope model. Our projections show that climate change may lead to numerous local extinction in the sub-polar regions, the tropics and semi-enclosed seas. Simultaneously, species invasion is projected to be most intense in the Arctic and the Southern Ocean. Together, they result in dramatic species turnovers of over 60% of the present biodiversity, implying ecological disturbances that potentially disrupt ecosystem services. Our projections can be viewed as a set of hypothesis for future analytical and empirical studies. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Bioclimate envelope; Climate change impact; Global marine biodiversity; Niche-based model; Species turnover; bioclimatology; biodiversity; biological invasion; climate change; disturbance; environmental disturbance; fish; future prospect; niche
Research Division:	Agricultural, Veterinary and Food Sciences
Research Group:	Fisheries sciences
Research Field:	Aquaculture and fisheries stock assessment
Objective Division:	Animal Production and Animal Primary Products
Objective Group:	Fisheries - wild caught
Objective Field:	Wild caught fin fish (excl. tuna)
UTAS Author:	Watson, RA (Professor Reginald Watson)
ID Code:	83748
Year Published:	2009
Web of Science® Times Cited:	943
Deposited By:	Sustainable Marine Research Collaboration
Deposited On:	2013-03-21
Last Modified:	2013-04-22
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