Australia Flag 45K Vulnerable Marine Species

Sydney, Feb 16: A team of marine experts at the University of Queensland (UQ) have compiled a list of more than 45,000 at-risk species, showing the extent of the impact that global warming and other factors pose to marine life. The study, published in the Ecological Society of America (ESA) journal and released to the public on Wednesday, established a framework that pinpointed where and how conservation efforts should be focused.

Dr. Nathalie Butt from UQ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences said the research made important distinctions between the threats to different types of sea life. Corals and other sessile invertebrates, organisms without a backbone that are attached to the reef, were the most impacted by water conditions such as acidity and salinity, ranging between 0.4 and 0.5, on a 0 to 1 scale. “Increasing water temperature is related to the increasing acidity of the ocean. So, it’s quite difficult for them (creatures with shell structures) to form those structures under increasing acidity,” Butt told Xinhua.