Climate Change & Ocean Resilience
OBIS monitors biodiversity responses to warming, acidification, and habitat shifts, guiding adaptation and resilience strategies. Its multi-decadal, globally distributed occurrence records provide the empirical foundation for understanding how marine species and ecosystems are reorganising under climate pressure — and for projecting what comes next.
Supports: KMGBF Target 8, UNFCCC, IPCC, UN Ocean Decade, SDG 13
Occupancy-derived thermal affinities of marine fishes reflect known physiological thermal limits — a study built on OBIS occurrence data.
Designing MPA networks that remain effective as species ranges shift
Implemented
Within the EU-funded MPA Europe project, OBIS occurrence data and species distribution models were used to map how the thermal envelopes of hundreds of marine species are shifting under climate change scenarios. These outputs directly informed the design of a climate-resilient MPA network across European seas, providing planners with spatially explicit projections of biodiversity change.
Region: European seas
Challenge/issue: MPA networks designed for today's climate may fail to protect the species they were created for as distributions shift poleward and into deeper waters.
Impact: Spatially explicit climate projections informing the design of a climate-resilient MPA network across European seas.
OBIS inputs: OBIS API, regional datasets (European seas), species distribution modelling outputs
Mapping which species and habitats in national waters face the greatest climate risk
Ongoing
OBIS occurrence records can be combined with IPCC climate scenarios to map species at risk within national waters, identifying which taxa and habitats are most exposed to warming, acidification, and deoxygenation — a critical input for national adaptation plans.
Region: Global
Challenge/issue: Countries lack species-level evidence of climate exposure within their own exclusive economic zones, limiting the scope and ambition of national ocean adaptation plans.
Impact: Evidence base for national climate adaptation plans, identifying the most vulnerable taxa and habitats within national waters.
OBIS inputs: OBIS API, long-term occurrence data, national node datasets
Adapting fisheries management to warming-driven stock redistributions
Potential use case
OBIS data can track commercially important species moving poleward or to deeper waters as ocean temperatures rise, enabling fisheries authorities to anticipate stock redistributions and adapt quotas and spatial management measures accordingly.
Region: Global, with priority in high-latitude and sub-polar fisheries zones
Challenge/issue: Fisheries management boundaries are fixed while the species they regulate are not — stock redistributions driven by warming are outpacing the adaptive capacity of quota and licensing frameworks.
Impact: Proactive adaptation of fisheries quotas and spatial management to anticipated species redistributions under climate change.
OBIS inputs: Long-term occurrence data, OBIS mapper, taxon-level trend analysis
Protecting coastal ecosystem services as warming intensifies
Published
Seagrass and coral coverage projections built on OBIS baseline distribution data can quantify the future loss of critical ecosystem services — coastal protection, nursery habitat, carbon sequestration — under different warming trajectories, supporting investment in restoration and resilience.
Region: Tropical and subtropical coastal zones
Challenge/issue: Decisions on where to invest in coastal restoration and blue carbon rely on knowing which habitats are viable under future climate conditions — yet baseline distribution data and warming projections are rarely combined at the scales needed for planning.
Impact: Quantified projections of ecosystem service loss under warming scenarios, supporting investment decisions for coastal restoration and resilience.
OBIS inputs: Regional datasets (tropical & subtropical), long-term occurrence data, seagrass and coral taxon records
