Lobster populations across all of southern New England, from the elbow of Cape Cod to the Sound, have sunk to what fisheries biologists consider dangerously low levels. Meanwhile, their kin to the north flourish, accompanied by a healthy fishery for this favorite culinary crustacean.
When the waters of the Sound and elsewhere in southern New England warm to 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and stay there for two months or more – a condition occurring more frequently with climate change – lobsters, it seem, become chronically distressed. The gills on their undersides flutter rapidly, they don't draw in the oxygen they need from the water and their off-kilter respiration leaves their blood saturated with carbon dioxide. Adding to that, warm water holds less oxygen than colder water, so the lobsters are working harder for less.
"They start to pant, just like a dog," said Howell, showing a slide of data correlating lobster respiration rates and water temperatures during her presentation at the Connecticut Conference on Natural Resources last week at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. "They have no other way of cooling themselves off. This causes respiratory stress."
"This is not a linear effect," Howell said. "Lobsters are very tolerant (of changing water temperatures) until they can't tolerate it. It's a threshold effect."
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