Increasing ocean acidification could double the mortality of newly-hatched cod larvae. This would put populations of this economically famous fish species increasingly under pressure whether exploitation remains unchanged. For the first time ever, members of the German research network BIOACID have quantified mortality rates of cod in the western Baltic Sea and the Barents Sea under more acidified conditions which the fish may experience towards the end of the century. They integrated their results of two several-weeks long experiments in model calculations on stock dynamics. The various model scenarios showed that the recruitment could decrease to levels of one quarter to one twelfth of the recruitment of the final decades - a strong call for action for fisheries management.
Source: phys.org