Acid Waters Dissolving Shellfish

[sorseress]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060729.POLLUTION29/TPStory/Environment

 

[erich orser]

Very alarming stuff there!

 

[monty]

30% more acidic! I wonder what 30% means; isn't pH a log scale?

 

[Steve O'Shea]

30% more acidic! I wonder what 30% means; isn't pH a log scale?

Valid point Monty, but to put it in perspective, if I was to turn around and reduce your salary (or increase your taxes) by 30% you'd cry foul.

30% is 30%, whatever scale you operate on.

 

[sorseress]

Another story on rising acidity.....it's never good news, is it?

Unexpected rise in carbon-fuelled ocean acidity threatens shellfish, say scientists

 

[chrono_war01]

Pretty soon, we'd be having shell-less clams...

 

[baldtankman]

Talk about your selection pressure, could this usher in the age of the nudibranch?

 

[DWhatley]

Talk about your selection pressure, could this usher in the age of the nudibranch?

Interesting that you should make that suggestion as a diver/collector I work with has mentioned seeing a major colony of some of the nudis that they had only seen on rare occassions and are not listed as a Caribbean species.

 

[baldtankman]

Really? There could be a whole range of reasons for that but its a bit spooky. I reckon I am seeing much more green algae when i dive these days (than when I started in the 70's) but I put that down to fertilizers and maybe climate change.

Who knows how much of an impact we are going to have on evolution and what the higher life forms in 10,000 years will make of us. Lets hope its not all negative, but I do worry.

 

[DWhatley]

There seems to be a lot of "invasions" occuring right now. One of the most feared on our East Coast is the large and growing population of Lionfish. Some of the news print attributes it to a personal aquarium that held 6 of them that were freed during a hurricane. I don't hold much to that idea, especially since they seem to be coming from the Bahammas and suspect more of a migration like we are seeing with the Humbolt squid. Not only do we not know if global warming, farming run-off and over-fishing are causing these changes in habitat but we really don't know how often migrations occur normally since we haven't (partially due to technology) been paying much attention.

 

[chrono_war01]

Lionfish, being naturally aggressive could seriously mess with local biodiversity and they're mostly the top tier predators with their spines and all. I worry for the state of the ocean.

 

[DWhatley]

Yes, Eric, for the group studying the invasion, there is a lot of concern and effort being put forth to determine if there is a way to stop it. Not unlike the conslusions formed in the recent program about Humbolts, the natural habitat is ideal for them to take over and the concern heightened because of the additional commercial impact on diving. If you have ever experienced the sting of one of these, you will understand (my knuckle is almost normal now, finally).

 

[chrono_war01]

Perhaps a drive to educate how to properly catch, fillet and cook lionfish would be in order.

 

[DWhatley]

I did find out that they are edible and supposedly not difficult to safely prepare but if they are replacing some of the top preditors, what follows?

 

[chrono_war01]

Is a change of the entire food-chain of that affected location, the prey (smaller fish and assorted other things lion fish eat) is going to decrease, along with the number of competitors that also share the same prey-list. I personally think on a personal level, there's really not much we can do other than accept it and change out diets to include lionfish.

It's not like we can stop climate change in anything less than a decade. Not unless we somehow overcome the massive inertia that usually comes with the need to change.