Rhode Island’s warming water temperatures are causing a biomass metamorphosis that is transforming the state’s commercial and recreational fishing industries, for both better and worse.
Iconic species are disappearing (winter flounder, cod and lobsters), southerly species are appearing more frequently (spot and ocean sunfish) and more unwanted guests are arriving (jellyfish that have an appetite for fish larvae and, in the summer, lionfish, a venomous and fast-reproducing fish with a voracious appetite).
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