Jess McNally
Source: Wired
July 28, 2010

The warmth of the ocean is the critical factor that determines how much productivity and biodiversity there is in the ocean, and where.

In two separate studies, researchers found that warming oceans have led to a massive decline in the amount of plant life in the sea over the last century, and that temperature is tightly linked to global patterns of marine biodiversity.

"We are just now understanding how deeply temperature affects ocean life," said biologist Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, a co-author on both papers appearing July 28 in Nature. "It is not necessarily that increased temperature is destroying biodiversity, but we do know that a warmer ocean will look very different."

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