The Atlantic will be

When the Arctic Ocean warmed in the middle of the century, shellfish, slugs and other Pacific animals will resume the invasion of the North Atlantic, which was interrupted more than three million years ago.

Geology professor Geerat Vermeij of the University of California and Peter Roopnarine, an expert at the California Institute of Science, built climate models to predict the climate situation in the oceans. Models show that, by 2050, the Arctic Ocean will no longer have ice. This situation will restore weather conditions that existed in the middle of the Pliocene period (about 3 to 3.5 million years ago, when many modern mammals appeared on Earth). Many species in the northern Pacific have relatives in the North Atlantic Ocean. Fossil records show that many species have moved from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean at that time.

A sunset over the Atlantic Ocean.Photo: flickr

When cold climatic conditions returned, the road through the Arctic Ocean was cut off, mainly due to lack of food. As the ice melts, the amount of food in the Arctic Ocean will increase and the great migration of mollusks will continue again after being interrupted for more than three million years.

Vermeij and Roopnarine look at the scientific work of mollusks found in Bering and Chuckchi seas (between Alaska and eastern Siberia). They concluded that at least 77 lines of molluscs, accounting for about one-third of the shellfish that live in shallow waters in the Bering Sea, are capable of migrating to the Atlantic Ocean.

According to Vermeij, there are three factors that make shellfish move one way across the Arctic in the Pliocene. First, the Bering and Chukchi foods are plentiful. Secondly, there is a current flowing north from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait. Third, mollusks have to compete fiercely with more animals than they do in the Bering Sea.

However, the invaders did not destroy the native species, Vermeij said. Fossils show that invasions rarely lead to the extinction of a species of a species in the ocean environment. Instead, they will add new species and increase competition in the North Atlantic.

In the report, Vermeij and Roopnarine emphasized that in the past, species have extended the range of living in the ocean between warm climates.