Cold-water Fish Food Not Adapting to a Warming World, Study Says

“Tiny sea creatures that play a big role in the ocean food chain are unable to adapt to warming oceans, according to a new study that may have profound ramifications for fisheries,” this according to a recent NBC news report about an Australian study.

Does this point to a similar problem for cold, freshwater fisheries, and the macroinvertebrates that are staples of fish such as trout, salmon and grayling?

In the ocean, the cold-water plankton lives for one year or less. Researchers examined a 50-year dataset from the North Atlantic to determine how this creature and another plankton that thrives in warmer water fared over half a century.

“Lots of people have speculated that animals with short generation times will simply adapt to change,” Graeme Hays, a marine scientist at Australia’s Deakin University, told NBC News in an email. “We show that is not the case.”