The study, led by a team of scientists from the UK, Canada, Australia and France, is said to be the first to quantify future loss in deep-sea populations using advanced models, according to the Guardian. The study was published in the journal Global Change Biology.
The report says that over the next century, the population of seafloor-dwelling organisms will decline by 38 percent in the North Atlantic and 5 percent globally. Apparently the weight of lost life is greater than the weight of every person on Earth combined. Larger marine life will be more greatly affected, as they simply need more nutrients to survive.
The loss can be directly blamed on population decline in ocean-surface dwellers, which provide a source of food when they die and sink to the ocean’s floor. Surface-dwellers themselves face declining numbers due to other effects of climate change, like increased stratification — or layering — of ocean water due to warmer, rainier weather, as well as circulation of ocean waters slowing down.
“We were expecting some negative changes around the world, but the extent of changes, particularly in the North Atlantic, was staggering,” said Dr. Daniel Jones, the study’s lead author. “Globally we are talking about losses of marine life weighing more than every person on the planet put together.”
The team applied eight climate change models changes in food supply in the world’s oceans, according to the Vice Motherboard. They then determined a relationship between food supply and biomass using a global database of marine life.
The scientists hope this study will help develop policy for protecting the ocean. The team also noted that deep-sea fishing will only serve to quicken the pace of population decline,
