KOCHI: People living across the coastal states will soon have to change their preferences in the variety of fish they have consumed and relished for long.
Factors like ocean warming, acidification and calcification are beginning to make an impact on traditional fisheries with coastal states reporting newer species of fish.The oil sardine and mackerel which were found in abundance in Kerala coasts are now being netted by fishermen in the eastern coast right upto the Bangladesh coast.Coastal marine ecosystems all over the world are under unrelenting stress caused by human activity like urban development, dumping of hazardous or toxic substances, habitat destruction and coastal aquaculture.Combined with climate change, the fisheries have altered the production and distribution of some commercially important fishes from the Indian waters.“The oceans are getting warmer and so several species are moving northwards where the waters are still cooler than the southwest coast,” senior marine scientist E Vivekanandan said.Historically, the distribution of sardines and mackerels were restricted to the Malabar coast. However, a clear cut distribution shifts in these two species were observed since 1989. Oil sardines emerged as a major species along the southeast coast of India, while mackerel fishery emerged along the northwest coast.Like many other tropical pelagic fishes, Indian mackerel and Indian oil sardine have shown population crashes and sudden recoveries, and very strong inverse relationship.Studies from Pacific and Atlantic Oceans suggest that small pelagic fishes having short life span like sardines, anchovies and mackerels, are the best indicators of climate change as their coastal water habitat is more directly influenced by ocean-atmosphere variability related to climate change.The CMFRI has been leading studies on the impact and yield study of climate change on the small pelagic fishes for the last few years.Scientists are looking into the role of ocean-atmosphere variables responsible for the habitat shifting, switching of small fishes such as oil sardine and mackerel.“We have seen changes in the fisheries our coasts as well,” said Ian Poiner, CEO, Australian Institute of Marine Sciences and the chief coordinator of the Census of Marine Life (COML).He said that scientists have acquired around 30 million records of marine life across the globe as a part of the marine life census.
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