When low-oxygen "dead zones" began appearing off the Oregon Coast in the early 2000's, photos of the ocean floor revealed bottom-dwelling crabs that could not escape the suffocating conditions and died by the thousands.
But the question everyone asked was, "What about the fish?" recalls Oregon State University oceanographer Jack Barth. "We didn't really know the impacts on fish. We couldn't see them.”
Scientists from NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center and Oregon State have begun to answer that question with a new paper published in the journal Fisheries Oceanography. The paper finds that low-oxygen waters projected to expand with climate change create winners and losers among fish, with some adapted to handle low-oxygen conditions that drive other species away.
Read the full story at Phys.org>>
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