Feb 23, 2015 12:55 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Popular seafood items like oysters, clams and scallops may eventually become harder to come by or more expensive due to their availability in major fishing areas.

According to Discovery News, authors of a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change said rising ocean acidity is becoming a problem for the nation's biggest fishing communities.

"Ocean acidification has already cost the oyster industry in the Pacific Northwest nearly $110 million and jeopardized about 3,200 jobs," study lead author Julie Ekstrom, at the time with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a press release.

The researchers pointed to southern New England, the Pacific Northwest, coastal Alaska and Maine as problem areas, given the prominence of fishing.

"This clearly illustrates the vulnerability of communities dependent on shellfish to ocean acidification," study co-author George Waldbusser, an Oregon State University marine ecologist and biogeochemist, said in the release. "We are still finding ways to increase the adaptive capacity of these communities and industries to cope, and refining our understanding of various species' specific responses to acidification.

"Ultimately, however, without curbing carbon emissions, we will eventually run out of tools to address the short-term and we will be stuck with a much larger long-term problem."

A professor of fisheries and aquaculture at the University of Rhode Island not involved in the study, Mike Rice told Discovery News his state is likely to be impacted.

"There's not a lot of room for error," he said. "The data seem to show the areas of biggest risk are the cooler water areas. Areas like Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts that have a fairly robust shellfish industry need to be worrying."

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