Climate change may have destructing consequences for the world’s fish. The rise in global temperatures results into ocean acidification and warming that could hurt the diversity and population of fish species on earth.

In a news release, Ivan Nagelkerken, Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow with the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute, said that this ‘simplification’ of oceans is going to have deep consequences for our existing way of life, mainly for coastal populations and the ones that depend on oceans for food and trade.

Researchers have predicted diversity and population among fish to decrease, but that may not be true for all the species.

In the warmer water, tiny plankton could increase production but an increase of these creatures low on the food chain is not likely to translate up to larger animals.

Nagelkerken added, “With higher metabolic rates in the warmer water, and therefore a greater demand for food, there is a mismatch with less food available for carnivores - the bigger fish that fisheries industries are based around”. Nagelkerken mentioned that a species collapse will be from the top of the food chain down.

Researchers used the data from 632 published experiments across a number of marine environments, and observed the impact warming water and acidification have on the underwater ecosystems.

They discovered that either condition worsened by climate change could have a bad affect on coral, oysters, mussels, and other habitat-forming species. For instance, coral might become bleached due to warmer ocean temperatures.

“We need to know what we are doing to our world,” Richard Aronson, lead author of the study on king crabs in Antarctica and head of the department of biological sciences at Florida Institute of Technology told The Christian Science Monitor. “We need to know the full extent of climate change effects.”