Science

May 12, 2015 — The following was released by Directed Sustainable Fisheries, Inc.

May 11, 2015 — Fish can produce their own sunscreen and copying the method they use could lead to a sunscreen pill for humans, says a new study.

The scientists from Oregon State University in the US found that zebrafish are able to produce a chemical called gadusol that protects against ultraviolet (UV) radiation. They successfully reproduced the method that zebrafish use by expressing the relevant genes in yeast.

“The fact that the compound is produced by fish, as well as by other animals including birds, makes it a safe prospect to ingest in pill form,” said lead author of the study professor Taifo Mahmud.

The findings open the door to large-scale production of gadusol for sunscreen and as an antioxidant in pharmaceuticals.

Read the full story here

 

SEAFOODNEWS.COM  By Peggy Parker  –  May 8, 2015 – Healthy fisheries don’t necessarily lead to an economically healthy industry that can support coastal communities. A team of economists have developed a “triple bottom line” (TBL) measurement model that integrates economic and community goals alongside stock health.

The economists developed the Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs), a rapid assessment instrument for measuring the fishery-derived benefits being created not only in the fish stock in the water, but also in the harvest and post-harvest sectors and fishing communities.

“This tool is designed to help us evaluate a fishery system’s performance toward achieving economic, community and ecological sustainability – the ‘triple bottom line,’” said co-author James Anderson, director of the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Florida.

Anderson and University of Washington associate professor of aquatic and fishery sciences Chris Anderson are two of the lead authors of a paper published May 6 in the journal PLOS ONE describing the new methodology.

The authors found that globally, less healthy fish stocks usually lead to worse economic and community outcomes. However, they identified several cases where weaker stocks contribute importantly to the livelihoods of harvesters and their communities, and healthy fish stocks generated meager economic or community benefits.

“It is often assumed that economic and social benefits always follow healthy stocks, but this is rarely tested due to the lack of social data,” Chris Anderson said. “Our strategy was to develop a rapid assessment instrument that would organize the knowledge of local fishery experts to help us understand how harvesters and processors are performing economically and how the fishery is supporting its community.

Economically effective management, access to high-value markets and having other income opportunities often play a larger role in human outcomes than stock health, especially in communities where fishing is a large share of the economy.”

Anderson and 26 co-authors at the World Bank and other universities and organizations around the world chose 61 fisheries as initial case studies to build the assessment tool.

Since 2008, they have visited and studied fisheries ranging from Oregon Dungeness crab to Norway cod, Louisiana shrimp, Nile perch in Uganda and blue swimming crabs in Indonesia to gather information and refine the tool.

Here’s how it works: The authors created dozens of measurable statements that capture the range of three performance indicators – ecology, economics and community. Example statements relate to the degree of overfishing, price trends, the capacity of processors to export to the U.S. and E.U., health care access for processing workers, captains’ earnings relative to other jobs in the region and the social standing of the crew.

Then, to characterize a fishery, the authors drew on the knowledge of local experts who work with fishermen, processors and community leaders, scoring each statement from one to five, with five being the best, based on carefully defined categories of performance. The responses in each category were then averaged.

The co-authors used several international workshops and pilot cases with different users to refine their final set of statements to make the instrument robust across many different fisheries. They plan to add data from more fisheries and associate differences in performance with fishery management and governance factors.

“An overarching purpose is to be able to compare fisheries systems across species, management approaches and nations. With our new metric, I would argue you can now compare fisheries systems in Ghana to those in Iceland,” James Anderson said.

“Researchers will be able to make meaningful comparisons between large-scale and small-scale fisheries, nearshore and offshore fisheries, operations in industrialized countries compared to ones in developing countries, seafood aimed at export markets versus seafood primarily consumed locally, and a host of other possibilities,” said co-author Martin Smith, a professor of environmental economics at Duke University.

Instrument development and case studies were funded by the International Coalition of Fisheries Associations, the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Walton Family Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

May 5, 2015 —  Long-term research surveys enabled scientists to detect changes in the subarctic marine food web during a warm period. Over this time frame, large-bodied plankton were replaced by small-bodied plankton, a lower quality, less fat-rich food source for the fish and marine mammals that eat plankton. Other research studies by NOAA Fisheries showed that saffron cod have a much higher temperature tolerance than more fat-rich Arctic cod. If climate change results in sustained warmer water temperatures and a loss of sea ice, how will this affect the marine food web? Through their continued research, NOAA Fisheries and other scientists hope to find out.

The Relationship Between Walleye Pollock and Plankton  
Since 1982, NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center has been conducting regular surveys to monitor the health of the groundfish population. From 2004 to 2008, they observed that the abundance of adult pollock (age-3 fish) was declining. Fishery managers were concerned that the decline could negatively impact the more than $500 million per year commercial pollock fishery. However, after 2008 age-3 pollock abundance began increasing and is now back to historic levels. Even though pollock abundance rebounded, NOAA scientists were still curious about what had caused the temporary decline. As it turns out, sea ice coverage may have played a role.

NOAA Fisheries discovered this through their ongoing work with a team of scientists from various state and academic institutions who conduct regular surveys to study plankton, juvenile fish and oceanographic conditions such as water temperature and ocean acidity. These integrated ecosystem studies in collaboration with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (seabird observers), Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management, Arctic Yukon Kuskokwim Sustainable Salmon Initiative, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, and the North Pacific Research Board have been ongoing in the eastern Bering Sea during August to October for more than 14 years and for  two recent years farther north in the Chukchi Sea in August to September.  During 2002 to 2005, scientists noted a warming trend. Sea temperatures were also 2°C to 4°C warmer than average. Sea ice didn’t extend into the southeastern Bering Sea in the spring. Over these four consecutive years in the spring, the species of plankton available to young pollock to feed on changed. Large-bodied plankton were replaced by small-bodied plankton which were not as rich in fat. This meant that young pollock were having to eat more to survive.

Read the full story from NOAA Fisheries

May 5, 2015 — The years 2002 through 2005 were bad for Bering Sea pollock. The biomass plunged during those years. In a presentation in Washington, D.C., a NOAA fisheries biologist said today ongoing research points to two suspects: ice and fat, in league with each other.

NOAA biologist Ed Farley of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center says the low pollock years were warm, resulting little Bering Sea ice by May. The ice rebounded in 2007-2012, and so did the pollock.

“If we focus on that downward trend, that tended to occur during that early ice retreat period. That drop amounted to a 40 percent drop in available pollock catch, so that was a big issue. No one really understood why the pollock biomass was declining but it was impacting the fishery.”

Farley told reporters in Washington on Tuesday, that the key Arctic ingredient is fat. And it starts low on the food chain. Farley says when the ice retreats early in the spring, it benefits small zooplankton that are low in fat. The pollock have to eat a lot of them to become fat themselves. But late ice retreat favors big, fatty zooplankton that Farley says make for bigger, fatter pollock.

Read the full story and listen to the audio from Alaska Public Media