[Change Biology][Ecology] Taida Institute of Oceanography's Findings on Records of Climate Changes in Fish Selected as the Research Highlight of 《Nature》

[Change Biology][Ecology] Taida Institute of Oceanography's Findings on Records of Climate Changes in Fish Selected as the Research Highlight of Nature (Chinese Version)

According to Taida Alumni E-paper (2009/05/26), the Taiwan-US research team led by Assistant Professor Chih-hao HSIEH, Institute of Oceanography, NTU, found that there are certain “records” of climate changes in various kinds of fish. The findings were reported as the research highlight in May 14th Issue of Nature (vol. 459, No. 7244, p.142).

Assistant Professor HSIEH presented the latest findings in the new issue of Global Change Biology, the results of which were fundementally based upon the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations, which had so far been conducted monitoring the California Current for sixty years. The team observed 34 kinds of far ocean fish and found that in the process of ocean warming from the cooler period during 1951 to 1976 to the warmer period during 1977 to 1998, twenty-five kinds of fish were observed ostensive increase of volume. The team also found the kinds of fish which vertically immigrate between day and night also immigrated toward the north in the process of warming, while, on the contrary, those kinds which do not vertically immigrate between day and night did not showed ostensive proof of moving torwad nothern habitat. This might be, concluded by the team, due to the reason that in the process of warming, the upper layer of ocean water got warmed up more radically than the deeper layer, to which the vertical immigrants were sensitive while the deep habitants were not.

The team also found that the far ocean fish moved toward the coast in the process of warming, while the close ocean fish moved even closer to the coast. This phenomenon was described as “massive troops' invasion” and observed to have great impact upon the close ocean ecological systems, which conseqnetially influnced the total oceanic system and the fisheries.

The low-economic-valued and hence rarely investigated far ocean fish thus contained significant clues for ocean creatures' response to the climate changes; this is one of the great contribution of the findings. On the other hand, the findings also indicated that the inter-influence between far ocean fish and close ocean fish indeed existed, which implied the disturbance from human fisheries activities could be a profound and long-term, perhaps the best we could say indirectly, factor to the whole oceanic eco-system and the other parts thereof. The findings also poitned out that long-term investigations of the ocean must be the groundwork of ocean management and conservation.



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Information Source:
NTU Alumni E-paper 2009/05/26



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