Saving Seafood

New Study Shows Climate Change Could Reduce Scallop Population

October 3, 2018 — Researchers in Massachusetts say under the worst case scenario, climate change could reduce the scallop population by more than 50 percent in just a few decades, which could be bad news for New Bedford’s lucrative fishing port.

In 2016, commercial fishermen landed more than $300 million worth of fish at the Port of New Bedford, and 85 percent of that value came from scallops.

A new study from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution shows as carbon emissions in the atmosphere increase, so does the acidity in the ocean.

Jennie Rheuban, lead author of the report, said that could affect how well scallops can grow.

“Adults may actually be growing slower and calcifying less quickly under these acidified conditions because it’s more difficult for them to lay down calcium carbonate as a shell,” Rheuban said.

Rheuban said ocean acidification could also cause scallops to become more vulnerable.

“They aren’t able to swim quite as well when they’re experiencing acidified conditions, and so we hypothesize that under acidification, scallops may be more susceptible to predation,” she said.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

Ocean acidification may reduce sea scallop fisheries

September 24, 2018 — Each year, fishermen harvest more than $500 million worth of Atlantic sea scallops from the waters off the east coast of the United States. A new model created by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), however, predicts that those fisheries may potentially be in danger. As levels of carbon dioxide increase in the Earth’s atmosphere, the upper oceans become increasingly acidic—a condition that could reduce the sea scallop population by more than 50% in the next 30 to 80 years, under a worst-case scenario. Strong fisheries management and efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, however, might slow or even stop that trend.

The , published in the journal PLoS One, combines existing data and models of four major factors: future climate change scenarios, ocean acidification impacts,  policies, and fuel costs for fishermen.

“What’s novel about our work is that it brings together models of changing ocean environments as well as human responses” says Jennie Rheuban, the lead author of the study. “It combines socioeconomic decision making, ocean chemistry, atmospheric carbon dioxide, economic development and fisheries management. We tried to create a holistic view of how environmental changes might play out across different aspects of the  fishery,” she notes.

Read the full story at PHYS.org