A division of the Liberal Party of Australia
Fish research breakthrough prompts call for more funds for climate change studies
09 January, 2012
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Sen. Macdonald was commenting on ground-breaking studies by researchers at Townsville’s James Cook University and the CSIRO that showed some reef fish could adapt to rising sea temperatures within a few generations.
“I urge the Gillard Government to increase its financial commitment to climate change research to determine if science can play a role in lessening the impact of a warmer globe,” he said.
“We should not underestimate the capacity of the world’s scientists to play a role in offsetting the negative effects of climate change.”
Sen. Macdonald, Coalition spokesman on Northern and Remote Australia, said the Gillard Government’s climate strategy of introducing a blanket carbon tax and sending scores of bureaucrats and politicians to world climate conferences was based on a flawed belief that Australia could lead the world in tackling global warming.
Sen. Macdonald congratulated the JCU/CSIRO research team on their scientific research, details of which were published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Climate Change.
Lead researcher Jennifer Donelson said tropical damsel fish were exposed to water temperatures 1.5 and 3 degrees above normal levels to determine how fish would cope with projected sea temperatures in 2050 and 2100.
“There was a marked decline in their aerobic capacity as we’d expected – this affects the fish’s ability to swim fast and avoid predators,” said Ms Donelson, a Ph.D. student at JCU’s School of Marine and Tropical Biology who released the findings recently.
“However, when we bred the fish for several generations at higher temperatures, we found that the second generation of offspring had almost completely adjusted to the higher temperatures.
“We were amazed – stunned, even.
“It shows that some species can adjust faster than the rate of climate change,” she said.
Ms Donelson urged caution as the research so far only applied to a single reef fish species.
Sen. Macdonald said this world-class research again showed the pre-eminent position of North Queensland’s JCU in relation to marine science.