Excessive market demand for shrimp, sardines and other short-life fishes is having a greater impact on fisheries than climate change, according to new research. (Photo : Image courtesy of Investigación y Desarrollo)

Excessive market demand for shrimp, sardines and other short-life fishes is having a greater impact on some fisheries than climate change, according to new research.

Climate change can affect fisheries by warming the seas, affecting chlorophyll production, which fuels phytoplankton, the staple food of both shrimp and sardines.

But a research team led by Ernesto Chávez Ortiz, from the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) in Mexico City, which runs the Interdisciplinary Center of Marine Sciences (CICIMAR), has determined that there have been "no spectacular changes" attributable to climate change in these short-lifespan fisheries.

Instead, the researchers report, that market demands on the fisheries are causing a larger impact.

"Globally, a great part of the fishing resources is being exploited to its maximum capacity, several have overpassed its regeneration capacities and are overexploited" Chávez Ortiz said in a statement.

Climate change no doubt affects the oceans, the researchers said, but it affects fisheries with some variability.

The researchers identified increases in sardine fisheries production in the 1970s, then declines in the '80s that affected fishing on the Mexican coast of the Pacific Ocean and possibly attributable to El Niño, the researchers said.

Chávez Ortiz and his colleagues published their work in a paper titled, "Socioeconomic Impact of the global change over the fishing resources of the Mexican Pacific."