Kingsford and Welch., 2007:

"The implications that come from this review are as follows:

i) Predictions of global change and related environmental stressors are often weak, especially at spatial scales of less than one hundred kilometres.
ii) Changes in environmental stressors will alter the pelagic environment and linkages with other environments (eg coral reefs).
iii) Pelagic systems are quickly influenced by bottom-up (eg nutrient input) and top-down processes (eg predation) while mobile nekton can move great distances in response to environmental change.
iv) Predictions of physical change suggest that within the next 50 years biological changes in pelagic systems are likely to occur in patches on the GBR, rather than the entire region. Managers will have to deal with impacts on scales of tens to hundreds of kilometres in the medium term and spatial scales of impact are likely to increase with time."

Table 18.4: Biological responses to changes in the pelagic environment. Many potential responses and the ability to adapt will depend on rates of change