ENVIRONMENT
DEEP OCEAN IN DEEP TROUBLE Deep sea animals face greater risks compared to those nearer the surface as they become less able to maintain their preferred thermal habitats with climate change.
The curly-cue shape is a characteristic of this chrysogorgid octocoral, called Iridogorgia.
ASIA RE SEA RC H N EWS
Credit: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research
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Further Assistant Professor Jorge García Molinos | jorgegmolinos@arc.hokudai.ac.jp information Arctic Research Center Hokkaido University
An international team, including a Hokkaido University researcher, analysed contemporary and future global patterns of temperature change across the oceans’ depths. While a great deal of attention has been paid to how warming waters bleach coral and stress other animals living closer to the surface, this study shows creatures of the deep, where water is colder, are not safe. “We wanted to challenge the common perception that deep sea biodiversity is less exposed to climate change because deep waters are less variable than surface waters,” says Jorge García Molinos, a climate ecologist at Hokkaido University’s Arctic Research Center, who contributed to the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. “In fact, we find deep sea biodiversity is likely to be at greater risk because they are adapted to much more stable thermal environments.” Specifically, García Molinos and his col-
