Global shakeup 'behind diversity shift'
Tropical marine diversity once dominated what is now north-west Europe
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Friday, 01, Aug 2008 12:01
London's watery past may provide the answers to conservation challenges posed by climate change, it has been claimed.
An international team of researchers publishing their study in today's Science journal claims their findings help explain how the hub of marine life on Earth has shifted over time.
Fifty million years ago a shallow tropical sea covered much of what is now north-western Europe, containing a diversity of life unparalleled elsewhere on the planet.
Since then tectonic movement, causing the mountains in the Middle East, resulted in the Mediterranean being separated from the Indian Ocean.
Thirty million years later it is Indonesia and Papua New Guinea which boast the world's best marine life. Scientists believe following slow-moving tectonic developments could hold the key to understanding what the future holds in store.
"Previously, some scientists believed the diversity we see in south-east Asia developed only in the past few million years in response to climate and sea-level changes caused by the Ice Ages," co-author Ken Johnson said.
"This new analysis indicates that in south-east Asia the global signal of climate change was also heavily influenced by local conditions that were set over the long-term by the region's tectonic and oceanographic history."
Analysis of the changing geological and biological conditions, through study of the rock record, is expected to occupy the Natural History Museum's research team "for many years to come".