Article Summary:

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has released a series of fact sheets highlighting the effects of global warming on individual species. Amongst these, they have highlighted how the combination of increasing sea temperatures and ocean acidification will affect coral reefs and their inhabitants, using the clownfish as an exemplar of a species that will decline.

The study suggests that increasingly acidic water disrupts the clownfishes sense of smell which will then impair their ability to find specific host sea anemones. There is some possibility that clownfish may adapt to these changes by changing their behavior or the places they inhabit but their inability to move long distances and the rate at which their habitat is being degraded makes such an occurrence unlikely.