Tropical fish are invading Australian ocean water

[Davide DB]

A University of Adelaide study of shallow-water fish communities on rocky reefs in south-eastern Australia has found climate change is helping tropical fish species invade temperate Australian waters.

 

https://www.adelaide.edu.au/newsroom/news/list/2024/04/23/tropical-fish-are-invading-australian-ocean-water

 

[Chris Ross]

14 hours ago, Davide DB said:

A University of Adelaide study of shallow-water fish communities on rocky reefs in south-eastern Australia has found climate change is helping tropical fish species invade temperate Australian waters.

 

https://www.adelaide.edu.au/newsroom/news/list/2024/04/23/tropical-fish-are-invading-australian-ocean-water

 

This has been going on for some time now and tropicals are regularly seen in dives off Sydney, though most don't survive the winters.  I've seen quite a few myself at various times.  Recently we've seen a few tropical nudis such as Tambja morosa happily dining on local bryozoans.

 

There is actually a website that collects sightings of tropicals for research and they ask for particular species of interest south of landmark.  It's called redmap:

 

Redmap Australia - Redmap

 

Here's a Tambja morosa from Botany Bay in Sydney, previous to this I saw it in Lembeh strait.  They are found in the indo Pacific and down onto Great Barrier Reef.

 

[Davide DB]

We have the same problem in the Mediterranean as well, and there are several projects, sites and groups on SNs where we report these sightings.

The main source is the Suez Canal where several species transit from the Red Sea. They used to remain confined to the south. Now with rising temperatures they can be found further and further north, and by now some areas of south of Italy are tropicalized. Scorpion fish, Comb fish galore. Now fireworms have arrived in Tuscany.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lessepsian_migrant_species