Dead Fish Washed Ashore during Golden Alga Toxic Bloom

Large fish more vulnerable to climate change-induced fish kills

Dead Fish Washed Ashore during Golden Alga Toxic Bloom

Reference image of dead fish washed ashore during a golden algae toxic bloom. Photo by Michael Hooper, USGS.

Climate change-induced droughts and fish kills affect larger fish more severely than smaller individuals, according to new research.

In a paper published in Environmental Biology of Fishes, researchers from Leiden University, Sportvisserij Zuidwest Nederland and the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia compared evidence from drought-induced fish kills in the Netherlands, fisheries management literature and multiple physiological studies. They confirmed that when water gets warmer and deoxygenated, larger and older individuals within a species tend to die in greater numbers than their smaller and younger counterparts.

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FISHGLOB consortium members at UBC on April 3, 2023.

Fish biodiversity facing global change – Sea Around Us co-organizes FISHGLOB conference

Fish biodiversity facing global change – Sea Around Us co-organizes FISHGLOB conference

 

The Sea Around Us, together with the French Embassy in Canada, the University of Montpellier, FRB-CESAB: Centre de Synthèse et d’Analyse sur la Biodiversité and Rutgers University, is hosting the conference Fish biodiversity facing global change.

The event, which will take place on April 6, 2023, from 2-3 pm, at the University of British Columbia’s Michael Smith Labs Theatre, will present activities of the FISHGLOB consortium which has collected and combined a unique data set of scientific bottom trawl surveys conducted regularly during the last decades across the planet.

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William Cheung among top 20 climate scientists according to Reuters

William Cheung among top 20 climate scientists according to Reuters

William Cheung sitting in the Haka Node at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries

William Cheung. Photo courtesy of UBC Oceans.


William Cheung, Director of the Changing Ocean Research Unit at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and Associated Faculty at the Sea Around Us, is among the top 20 climate scientists in the world according to Reuters Hot List.

This accomplishment by Dr. Cheung is based on 176 publications that have received nearly 11,000 citations. His research has been conducted with 713 co-authors, notably Rashid Sumaila and Daniel Pauly, the researchers with whom he has collaborated the most.

Reuters’ ranking system also mentions that he has received
11 grants totaling $2.4 million.


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Galápagos as a living laboratory for the Anthropocene

Galápagos as a living laboratory for the Anthropocene

Galápagos. Image by averno_ph, Needpix.

Galápagos. Image by averno_ph, Needpix.

An international team of researchers led by experts at the Charles Darwin Foundation and with the collaboration of the Sea Around Us principal investigator, Daniel Pauly, and William Cheung, from the Changing Ocean Research Unit at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, just published a commentary in Nature Climate Change proposing the idea of Galápagos as a living laboratory for the Anthropocene.

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