View of earth from space
NASA
The North Atlantic Ocean imaged from the International Space Station, showing portions of Cuba, The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

As oceans warm due to climate change, scientists are trying to predict how marine animals — from backboned fish to spineless jellyfish — will react. Laboratory experiments indicate that many could theoretically tolerate temperatures far higher than what they encounter today. But these studies don’t mean that marine animals can maintain their current ranges in warmer oceans, according to Curtis Deutsch, a professor of oceanography at the University of Washington.

“Temperature alone does not explain where in the ocean an animal can live,” said Deutsch. “You must consider oxygen: how much is present in the water, how well an organism can take up and utilize it, and how temperature affects these processes.”

Species-specific characteristics, overall oxygen levels and water temperature combine to determine which parts of the ocean are “breathable” for different ocean-dwelling creatures. New research led by Deutsch shows that a wide variety of marine animals — from vertebrates to crustaceans to mollusks — already inhabit the maximum range of breathable ocean that their physiology will allow.

The findings, published Sept. 16 in Nature, also provide a warning about climate change: Since warmer waters will harbor less oxygen, some stretches of ocean that are breathable today for a given species may not be in the future.

Read more at UW News »