New research in Australia has shown that coral reef fish can undergo radical personality changes in warmer water, work that suggests climate change may make some marine species more aggressive. Experiments have been conducted on two species of young damselfish on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which have shown that water temperatures can alter a fish’s behavior.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney have said that a slight increase in water temperature of just one or two degrees Celsius may cause some fish to become up to 30 times more active and aggressive.

Scientists believe that as the water becomes warmer, the animals’ metabolism rapidly speeds up. Fish are ectotherms and their body temperature is the same as the environment around them.

There are concerns that as the world’s oceans heat up under the effects of climate change, then bolder, more active fish may increasingly become targets for predators.

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Researchers questioned more than 2,000 migrants in 23 countries about why they moved, said Koko Warner of the U.N. University, which conducted the study with CARE International.

The results were “a clear signal” that environmental stress already is causing population shifts, she said, and it could be “a mega-trend of the future.”

The potential for masses of humanity fleeing disaster zones or gradually being driven out by increasingly harsh conditions is likely to be part of a global warming agreement under negotiation among 192 countries.

A draft text calls on nations to prepare plans to adapt to climate change by accounting for possible migrations.

At U.S. insistence, however, the term “climate refugees” will be stricken from the draft text because refugees have rights under international law, and climate migrants do not fill the description of “persecuted” people, said Warner.

The report, “In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement,” studies people in some of the world’s great river deltas who could be subject to glacial melt, desert dwellers who are vulnerable to increasing drought, and islanders whose entire nations could be submerged by rising sea levels.

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