Warming seas could shrink most mollusks by 2100, but some may grow
New research suggests that climate change will cause non-uniform changes in the body size of marine mollusks by 2100. While many species are expected to shrink due to warming oceans, the study highlights that some groups may actually increase in size, challenging previous assumptions.
Why it matters
Predicting how marine ecosystems adapt to climate change is critical for understanding future biodiversity and the stability of ocean food webs.
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Add as preferred source White nudibranch—Limacia mcdonaldi: Climate change won't just shrink individual animals—it will reshuffle which species live where. Meet Limacia mcdonaldi, one of 23,329 mollusc species whose future depends on how warming, oxygen loss, and shifting productivity play out across the ocean. Credit: University of Helsinki Research led by scientists at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette challenges a long-held assumption about the effects of climate change on marine life: Warmer oceans won't simply make animals smaller.
The study was led by Isaac Trindade-Santos, who conducted the research as a postdoctoral researcher in the UL Lafayette laboratory of senior author Dr. Craig McClain. Trindade-Santos is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki.
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