Fish Diversity Increasing in Northern Waters as Oceans Warm

The diversity of fish species in northern seas has increased by more than 60 per cent in recent decades due to higher temperatures, says a study from Nord University last autumn.

“Observed range shifts of numerous species support predictions of climate change models that species will shift their distribution northward into the Arctic and sub-Arctic seas due to ocean warming,” said the authors of the study.

“These changes in biodiversity correlated with an increase in sea bottom temperature.”

To do the study, researchers at Norway’s Nord University and the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) in Spain, analyzed 20,670 scientific trawls surveys done between 1994 to 2020 from the North Sea to the Arctic Ocean.  

They found that in 1994, the Norwegian and the Barents Seas, there was an average of 8 fish species caught in each trawl.

But by 2020, the average number of fish in each trawl was more than 13, an increase of 66 per cent.

Twenty-three  species in the study area were found to be becoming less common.