Saving Seafood

Fishing, pollution and rising temperatures: how marine science can help us save the oceans

February 9, 2022 –A healthy sea determines the planet’s balance and, in turn, the health and well-being of its people. That is why ocean science has never played a more vital role, helping us to grasp today’s deterioration of the world’s biggest ecosystem – and find solutions.

As scientists, public and private stakeholders and heads of state prepare to share diagnoses and cures for improving the “patient’s” condition at the One Ocean Summit in Brest, France, from 9 to 11 February 2022, Ifremer, the French oceanographic institute invited to the talks, looks at some of the more promising avenues for research.

Mare incognitum

Our home is called Earth, but the name does not fully reflect the reality of a planet where liquid predominates: dry land takes up just under 30% of the globe’s surface, while the sea covers the remaining 70%.

The ocean is the world’s biggest ecosystem, yet it remains a huge mystery, a mare incognitum. The abyssal zone alone is thought to house up to a million species scientists have yet to document, showing how much we need science to lift the veil on a world that remains an enigma but whose crucial role in determining the health of our planet and its life forms is, in contrast, no longer a mystery.

Read the full story at The Conversation

 

Earth is likely just a decade a way from hitting 1.5°C of global warming — and scientists say it will be “catastrophic” for coral reefs

February 4, 2022 — The United Nations has warned the continued use of fossil fuels is hurtling the planet to 1.5°C of global warming, relative to 1850-1900 levels, a threshold that will result in “unprecedented” extreme weather events. According to new research, climate change will also result in coral bleaching that will be “catastrophic” for reefs, and potentially, the marine life that live around them.

Bleaching can occur from a change in ocean temperature, pollution, overexposure to sunlight and low tides. Any of these influences can stress coral and causes it to release the algae that live in its tissues. The loss of algae, corals’ primary food source, causes the coral to turn white and makes it more susceptible to disease.

Reefs are “among the most biologically diverse and valuable ecosystems on Earth,” serving as a vital resource for an estimated 25% of all marine life, which depend on reefs for their life cycles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Roughly half a billion people also depend on reefs for food, coastal protection, tourism and fisheries’ income.

But as climate change continues to negatively impact the planet, it will “overwhelm” those reefs, researchers said, and almost none of them will be able to escape a grave scenario.

Read the full story at CBS News

Scientists turn underwater gardeners to save precious marine plant

February 3, 2022 — Whoever said there’s nothing more boring than watching grass grow wasn’t thinking about seagrass. Often confused with seaweeds and rarely receiving the attention they deserve, there’s nothing boring about seagrasses. In fact, they are one of the most productive ecosystems in the world.

Next time you are swimming and enjoying the sea’s cool embrace look down and try to spot the slender blades of seagrass, a remarkable marine plant that plays a vital role in the coastal environment but is now under threat.

Forming dense underwater meadows, seagrasses are vital to maintain fisheries, absorb carbon and protect coastlines from erosion—but their future is threatened by , pollution and other impacts of human activities, scientists say.

The plants grow in shallow coastal waters in all regions except the Antarctic. They act as nurseries or feeding grounds for hundreds of species of seafood, including sea bream, octopus, cuttlefish and Alaska pollock—one of the most fished species in the world.

Read the full story at Phys.org

Gulf of Maine waters spiked to record warm temperatures in fall 2021

February 3, 2022 — Anyone who enjoyed the ocean last fall may have noticed the water felt unseasonably warm. That’s because it was.

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute reported last month that between September and November 2021, the sea surface temperatures of water off the coast of Maine were the warmest ever recorded.

How much warmer are we talking about? Close to six degrees Fahrenheit warmer on any given day than the average, according to David Reidmiller, Climate Change Director at GMRI. The sea surface temperatures hovered around 60 degrees almost through the month of October.

Warming ocean waters are a global trend, but in 2010 scientists really started to notice an increase in the warming trend in the Gulf of Maine, which lies from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia and extends several miles into the open ocean.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

 

Warming oceans could set off cross-border fish fights

January 31, 2022 — Tensions between countries are likely to rise with the global temperature as valuable fish stocks fleeing warmer waters cross into different national boundaries, a new study suggests.

The climate crisis will push 45 per cent of the world’s shared fish stocks away from historic habitat ranges and migration routes by 2100, posing a challenge for international co-operation, said senior author William Cheung.

“Fish don’t recognize political boundaries,” said Cheung, associate professor with the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.

Fishing allocations, who gets what and how much, are political constructs based on an existing range of conventions and treaties, but these agreements are going to have to adapt to new realities if global emission rates continue, Cheung said.

Overall, climate change is pushing transboundary stocks to fishing grounds closer to the Poles and in many cases, the shift is already happening, he said, adding shifts on the Pacific coast of Central America and West Africa will occur primarily along the equator.

Read the full story at the Toronto Star

Past Fishing and Development Makes California Salmon More Vulnerable To Climate Change

Janaury 27, 2022 — California’s native salmon have been harmed by more than a century of mining, dam building, floodplain reclamation, fishing pressure, hatchery practices, and introduced predators. These stressors have undermined the resilience of California’s native salmon to the accelerating effects of climate change, new research shows.

Researchers from NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest and Southwest Fisheries Science Centers chronicled the loss of habitat and genetic diversity that once helped salmon withstand a changing climate.

“The eggs are in fewer baskets,” said Stuart Munsch, an ecosystem scientist at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author of the new study published today in Global Change Biology. “The same landscape diversity in California that lets you go skiing and surfing in the same day used to support diverse salmon populations and a fishery well buffered against climate”.

“Now, that salmon diversity is mostly lost, and dams confine salmon to the hottest part of the watershed, where nonnative predators and a lack of rearing habitat reduce their survival. The result of all these stressors is that today’s salmon track climate more tightly than they used to in a warming landscape that routinely experiences drought.”

They said restoring degraded habitat and access to habitat above dams could help revive that diversity. By reopening and improving different areas, restoration can reclaim lost niches and adaptations that help spread the risk. In addition, other recovery actions such as increasing streamflow can make the restoration more effective.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

New study finds aquaculture could help counter drivers of climate change

January 27, 2022 — A joint study recently released by the University of Adelaide and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), titled “Climate-Friendly Seafood: The Potential for Emissions Reduction and Carbon Capture in Marine Aquaculture,” reveals aquaculture done right could actively reduce the drivers of climate change.

The study assessed greenhouse gas emissions for marine aquaculture of fed-finfish, macroalgae, and bivalves. According to the study, mariculture generates 37.5 percent of all aquaculture products and 97 percent of the world’s seafood harvest. Though mariculture already has a lower greenhouse gas emission footprint than terrestrial products, further low-emissions strategies must be implemented as production continues to scale up to meet future global demand.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Climate Change Scenario Planning: Upcoming Webinars to Focus on Oceanographic, Biological, Social/Economic Drivers

January 25, 2022 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

Over the past year, East Coast fishery management bodies have been collaborating on a climate change scenario planning initiative designed to prepare fishing communities and fishery managers for an era of climate change. The goals of this project are to assess how climate change might affect stock distribution and availability of East Coast marine fisheries over the next 20 years and to identify the implications for fishery management and governance.

Last summer and fall, many stakeholders participated in the Scoping phase of the project by attending introductory scoping webinars and providing input through an online questionnaire. A summary of the scoping process and input received is available here.

The next step in the scenario planning process is the Exploration phase. Building on the input gathered during scoping, this phase will include a series of three webinars that will focus on identifying and analyzing the major drivers of change in greater depth. Once again, stakeholder involvement is key, and the webinars are open to the public. The outcomes of these webinars will form the “building blocks” for a future scenario creation workshop to be held in Spring 2022.

Webinar Details: The webinars will contain a keynote address, a panel discussion, and a limited opportunity for comments, questions, and discussion. Three background documents are being developed with specific information to support each webinar. Once completed, these documents will be posted here. Participants are encouraged to review these backgrounders before the webinars begin and come prepared to share comments on the primary drivers of change for East Coast fisheries based on personal experiences.

Read the full release here

Bleached reefs still support nutritious fish, study finds

January 21, 2022 — Escalating ocean temperatures stemming from climate change are devastating the world’s tropical coral reefs. In response to the stress, corals, which are animals, sometimes unceremoniously jettison the algae that live within them. That expulsion drains the color from the reefs in what’s known as bleaching. In the severest cases, it can kill the coral, which need the algae to provide them with nutrients, oxygen and waste management.

At the same time, millions of people in the tropics eat fish that live on these reefs. And today, the widespread bleaching of tropical reefs, which is expected to continue as the Earth heats up, has thrown into question how those fisheries and the communities that depend on them for sustenance will respond.

Now, a new study published Jan. 6 in the journal One Earth has found that in certain circumstances, critical nutrients for human development found in reef fishes remain available even after mass bleaching has occurred.

“An important message here is that climate-impacted reefs can still provide some important ecosystem services, and therefore should still be considered in management plans and conservation,” said Camille Mellin, a quantitative ecologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who was not involved in the study.

Read the full story at Mongabay

 

Waters off New England hit record fall temperature in ’21

January 19, 2022 — A body of water off New England and Canada had its warmest fall surface temperatures on record last year, a Maine science center reported.

The Gulf of Maine has long been a focus of climate scientists because it is warming faster than most of the world’s oceans. The Gulf of Maine Research Institute said last week that average sea surface temperatures in the gulf reached 59.9 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 degrees Celsius).

Read the full story from the Associated Press