Question: In your marine biodiversity study, did you investigate the impacts that climate change is having on the species you studied and marine environments in general?

Anabel Martinez Lyons answered on 30 Apr 2020: last edited 30 Apr 2020 8:13 am

Hi, and thanks for your question! As a main part of that research, I didn’t look into the impact of climate change on these species directly but I did get to see the impact of human pollution & environmental mismanagement on marine ecosystems. In fact, when I was doing this work the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill had happened about two years earlier. We were one of the only labs that had samples and photos capturing the biodiversity of marine life in the affected area of the Gulf of Mexico before the spill, as well as biological samples and photos of afterwards. It was really shocking to see how affected this marine environment was, especially the corals, many of which were bleached white and effectively dead. I imagine it’ll be decades or centuries before this area starts to recover properly… Regarding climate change & marine biodiversity in particular though, it’s a fascinating area with lots of fantastic research being done about it. Here is a link which gives some clear information about the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems and biodiversity if you’d like to have a look: https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/oceans/problems/climate_change/.