Climate Change Affecting Size Of Ocean Life
For a long time scientists have observed the biological consequences of global climate change. One of the most famous symptoms is the shift of habitats from the equator further north or further south. More recent studies show that not only the habitats but also the size of organisms is affected.
Dr. Martin Daufresne of the HYAX Lake Ecosystem Laboratory in Aix-en-Provence, France, as well as Prof. Ulrich Sommer and Dr. Kathrin Lengfellner of the Leibniz-Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Kiel have shown that global warming leads to reduced body size of organisms in the ocean and in freshwater. Very different organisms showed this tendency: bacteria, plankton-algae, zooplankton and fishes in the North and Baltic Sea and in French rivers.
