Source: ScienceDaily
December 3, 2009

Coral reef fish can undergo a personality change in warmer water, according to an intriguing new study suggesting that climate change may make some species more aggressive.

Experiments with two species of young damselfish on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have shown for the first time that some reef fish are either consistently timid, or consistently bold, and that these individual differences are even more marked as water temperatures rise.

A slight lift of just one or two degrees may have only a small effect on some fish but the behaviour of others can be transformed—leading them to become up to 30 times more active and aggressive.

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