One of our planet’s greatest treasures is its incredible biodiversity: from oceans and jungles to deserts and swamplands, we’re lucky to have such a rich variety of animal and plant species. But environmentalists warn that climate change is rapidly eating away at the world’s biodiversity, especially in coastal regions and rainforests.

One of the answers to that problem has been creating protected habitats. According to a recent report from the Marine Ecology Progress Series, more than 100,000 protected areas – representing about 7 million square miles of land and 1 million square miles of ocean – have been designated in the last five decades.

But despite those conservation efforts, the diversity of species is falling, and fast. That makes one thing clear: creating protected habitats won’t be enough to slow the loss of biodiversity on our planet. Environmentalists say it will take a much bigger effort – and everyone will have to get involved.

We already know a lot of the effects that climate change has on our planet–like extreme weather, vanishing resources and rising water levels. But the earth’s water levels aren’t just rising, they’re getting warmer, too. And that has an impact on the wide variety of marine life that lives in our oceans.

A new study in the “Nature Climate Change” Journal shows that temperature hikes in the southern hemisphere ocean are starting to have a negative impact on marine species too, especially a type of fish called the “banded morwong” (pictured above). One of the study’s authors says ocean warming can have a serious effect on how a species grows, how the animals’ bodies function and even how they behave. Usually, warmer temperatures in the waters make a species multiply faster. But the ocean has warmed up too much at this point, and it’s taking a toll on the banded morwong population. Scientists were able to see increased stress on the fish, and that’s caused some of the morwong to die.

If you live near the ocean, tell us some climate change indicators you’ve seen around you…