International Research Journal of Education and Technology

As the world’s oceans warm and become more acidic due to climate change, the ability of marine ecosystems to adapt and continue to provide the services they currently do is increasingly uncertain. To date, most research on the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems has focused on individual species or groups of species, with relatively little attention paid to ecosystem-level responses. A new study published in Frontiers in Marine Science, however, takes an ecosystem-wide approach to investigating how different types of ocean ecosystems might respond to future climate change. The study used a mixture of computer simulations and field observations to examine the resilience of four different types of ocean ecosystems: coral reefs, kelp forests, seagrass meadows, and mangrove forests. The researchers found that all four ecosystems are likely to experience significant changes as a result of climate change, but that some are more resilient than others. Coral reefs are perhaps the most sensitive of all the ecosystem types studied. The study found that even small increases in temperature or decreases in pH (a measure of acidity) can have major impacts on coral reefs, causing them to lose their structural complexity and eventually break down completely. This loss of structure would have far-reaching consequences for the many species that depend on coral reefs for food and shelter.