Question: Why does it matter that fish are resistant to climate change?

Sarah-Jane Walsh answered on 20 Jun 2013:

It not so much that fish need to be resistant to climate change, but that climate change will affect the services they provide to us.

Think of it like this a fish only likes to live on a coral reef at a temperature of 26 degrees, an local man fishes on his patch of reef and catches this fish every day of his life, his life and the lives of his kids depend on this fish.

however lets say that global warming increases the temperature where he lives to 29 degrees, what happens now? the coral cant cope, and because it cant move it dies, the fish might be able to cope but with no home he moves to the temperature he prefers swimming away from the equator to cooler waters…. no what doe that man have left to eat?

now maybe a new fish comes to fill this niche left behind, but this fish is very difficult to catch, or poisonous, or too small… then the man will have to move or starve.

This inst just a problem in the tropical reefs, even in the UK in the North sea we have seen fish slowly migrating north, this affects the whole food web as some species adapt on longer time scales, it affects our own fishing industry.

so its not so much a problem for the fish, but more for ourselves as humans! really we are shooting ourselves in the foot by accelerating global warming!