By 2050, fisheries near the arctic and antarctic may look very different. Specifically, they may become home to countless species of tropical fish, who are gradually moving away from the equator as global climate change notches temperatures upward. According to a study by researchers at the University of British Columbia, the fish could migrate as fast as 26 kilometers per decade under a worst-case scenario.

“The tropics will be the overall losers,” says William Cheung, associate professor at the UBC Fisheries Centre and co-author of this study, published today in ICES Journal of Marine Science.  “This area has a high dependence on fish for food, diet and nutrition. We’ll see a loss of fish populations that are important to the fisheries and communities in these regions.”

The aforementioned “worst-case scenario” refers to Earth’s average temperature warming by three degrees Celsius by 2100 – a doomsday scenario, to be sure. Unfortunately, even a best-case scenario doesn’t paint a much rosier picture: In the case of Earth warming by just one degree by 2100, the fish should still move by about 15 kilometers every decade.

The study focused on 802 “commercially important” species of fish. That’s bad news for the tropics, where both the economy and culture center around the sea and its bounty. Diminished fisheries could spell disaster for tropical economies as fish become harder to find and increasingly expensive. As for the poles, no one’s yet sure what effect the invasive species will have.

“As fish move to cooler waters, this generates new opportunities for fisheries in the Arctic,” says Miranda Jones, a UBC Nereus Fellow and lead author of this study. “On the other hand it means it could disrupt the species that live there now and increase competition for resources.”