Reduced coral reef fish biodiversity under temperatures that mirror climate predictions

As global warming continues to escalate, there are lasting implications to consider, including the changes to biological communities in vital habitats such as coral reefs. A team of researchers, led by Simon Brandl (currently at the Center de Recherches Insulaires et Observatoire de l'Environnement, CRIOBE, France) and Jacob Johansen, an assistant research professor at Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology (and previously a research scientist at NYU Abu Dhabi's Marine Biology Lab), recently studied cryptobenthic reef fishes (small, bottom-dwelling fish that are at the base of coral reef food webs) in the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Oman and found that the more thermally extreme coral reef habitat in the Arabian Gulf adversely impacted the diversity and productivity of these important fishes.

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