NEW research by the Plymouth-based Marine Biological Association has revealed some of the effects global warming could have on our marine life.

The Marine Biodiversity and Climate Change Project (MarClim) has produced a body of information which shows that while warm water species seem to be thriving, cold water species are rapidly declining and even becoming extinct in localised areas.

Various marine species also appear to be travelling north by up to 50km per decade, three times faster than similar terrestrial species.

Dr Nova Mieszkowska and his colleagues – who have been working on the MBA's MarClim project every year for the last 10 years, surveying the rocky shores of Britain and Ireland – also found that the cold water tortoiseshell limpet has retreated north by almost 1000km, with breeding populations now only recorded in northern Scotland.

"Using this dataset we can see how marine plants and animals have responded to natural warming and cooling of the climate in the past and that allows us to determine the scale and speed of response to the unprecedented rapid warming that we are seeing now," said Dr Mieszkowska.

"Range shifts have been seen across a wide range of algae and invertebrates, showing that many different species are responding to climate warming.

"Not all species are negatively affected; those with origins in warmer waters of Europe are expanding their distributions north as the environment becomes more favourable. For some native species, however, the warming is bad news, causing them to fail to reproduce and survive near their southern range edges," he added.

The MarClim approach is now being exported to other countries.