Saving Seafood

During Capitol Hill Ocean Week, The U.S. House Passed Four Bills To Study Changing Ocean Chemistry

June 12, 2019 — Since the end of the 19th century, several billions of tons of carbon have been pumped into our planet’s atmosphere, causing sea surface temperatures and sea levels to rise. Additionally, as the oceans have absorbed some of this carbon, their overall acidity has increased by 30 percent.  Changes in acidity and overall ocean chemistry – termed “ocean acidification” – can negatively affect an animal’s sense of smell (which helps them avoid predators, find food, and identify good habitats) and ability to grow its shell.

“We first felt its effects in the mid-2000’s when more acidified water caused Pacific Northwest oyster farmers to suffer drastic losses and go nearly bankrupt,” says Dr. Sarah Cooley, Director of Ocean Conservancy’s Ocean Acidification Program, “Scientists later identified the threat acidification poses to other industries and the people who rely on them, including the $1 billion-dollar lobster industry in the northeast and the coral reef tourism industry of Florida.”

Last week, nearly 90 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives passed four bills to combat the ocean’s changing chemistry. The Ocean Acidification Innovation Act (H.R.1921) (which I previously reported on here), COAST Research Act of 2019 (H.R. 1237), Coastal Communities Ocean Acidification Act of 2019 (H.R.1716), and NEAR Act of 2019(H.R.988).  Together, these bills, if passed by the U.S. Senate, would provide resources to monitor changes in ocean chemistry in both coastal and offshore environments, understand the effects of acidification on coastal communities, and elicit a National Academies of Science study that examines changing chemistry in estuaries – the bodies of water between freshwater rivers and the oceans. The passage of these bills coincided with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s annual Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW).

Read the full story at Forbes

Life in the North Atlantic depends on this floating seaweed

May 15, 2019 — ‘THERE’S NOTHING LIKE it in any other ocean,’ says marine biologist Brian Lapointe. ‘There’s nowhere else on our blue planet that supports such diversity in the middle of the ocean—and it’s because of the weed.’

Lapointe is talking about a floating seaweed known as sargassum in a region of the Atlantic called the Sargasso Sea. The boundaries of this sea are vague, defined not by landmasses but by five major currents that swirl in a clockwise embrace around Bermuda. Far from any mainland, its waters are nutrient poor and therefore exceptionally clear and stunningly blue.

The Sargasso Sea, part of the vast whirlpool known as the North Atlantic gyre, often has been described as an oceanic desert—and it would appear to be, if it weren’t for the floating mats of sargassum.

The seaweed may seem unremarkable at first glance—just bunches of drifting plant matter—but as Lapointe has helped illuminate through his work, sargassum is the basis of a complex ecosystem that nurtures a stunning array of marine life. It serves as a mobile shelter and a movable feast.

For 36 years Lapointe, a biologist with Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, has combed the Sargasso Sea, observing sargassum by satellite and experiencing it firsthand in scuba gear. He wanted to figure out where the weed comes from, how it moves, what it sustains, and what sustains it—and to unravel the complex relationship sargassum has with other forms of marine life, from seahorses to great white sharks. Only by learning about this vital resource, he says, can we protect it from potential threats, such as ocean acidification and pollution.

Read the full story at National Geographic

During abrupt warming, lobsters in acidic water have reduced heart function, fewer infection-fighting cells

April 25, 2019 — Ocean acidification and warming may be an unhealthy combination for lobsters, say University of Maine scientists.

The heart rates of lobsters (Homarus americanus) who lived 60 days in water with predicted end-century  pH levels became erratic significantly sooner during an abrupt warming event than those of lobsters in ocean water with current pH levels.

The findings could be “likened to putting people on a treadmill and finding that people exposed to  fell off the treadmill from exhaustion much sooner than those not exposed,” says Heather Hamlin, a reproductive endocrinologist and associate professor in the School of Marine Sciences.

The lobsters exposed to acidic ocean conditions also had fewer cells that fight infection in their hemolymph (similar to blood), says Amalia Harrington, a recent marine biology Ph.D. graduate.

So while lobsters in acidic  may look and act normal, they experience physiological challenges when exposed to multiple stressors, says Hamlin.

She and Harrington tested adolescent female lobsters transitioning to adulthood. Effects of environmental stressors during this stage could have major impacts on the population of the species, say the researchers, who believe this is the first such study of its kind.

“We’re really trying to get at the ‘hidden’  on this understudied but extremely important stage of the American lobster,” says Harrington.

“Most of the previous work exploring climate change impacts on American lobster has focused on early developmental stages (eggs and larvae). While this is helpful for understanding how environmental change might impact the number of baby lobsters that survive their time in the plankton and make it to the seafloor, it doesn’t really tell us what impact that will have on the population as a whole.”

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Oregon lawmakers propose bill providing millions in funding for climate change research

April 15, 2019 — Oregon state lawmakers are proposing a bill which would provide nearly USD 2 million (EUR 1.7 million) to study and respond to the effects of rising ocean temperatures, low oxygen levels, and ocean acidification, according to a report in the Statesman Journal last week.

Thirty percent of man-made carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, which causes the water to become more acidic, the report said. The change in ocean pH levels has made it difficult for animals like crabs, oysters, and shrimp to make their shells, which could be a blow to the state’s shellfish industry.

Senate Bill 260 would provide USD 1.9 million (EUR 1.68 million) from the state’s general fund to respond to the problems caused by climate change.

If the bill passes, the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife would receive USD 470,000 (EUR 415,799) to map and assess estuaries – most existing research on acidification and hypoxia (low oxygen levels) has been done offshore.

Oregon State University would receive USD 370,000 (EUR 327,347) to conduct projects concerning shellfish breeding and ocean sampling and monitoring.

The Oregon Ocean Science Trust would receive the lion’s share of the funding, USD 1.06 million (EUR 937,727), which would be used for seven different projects, including modeling of aquatic vegetation, acidification and hypoxia monitoring, and a communications plan.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network Seeking Stakeholder Perspectives on Ocean Acidification

April 11, 2019 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network (MACAN) is seeking perspectives on ocean acidification from members of commercial fishing, seafood, aquaculture, charter boat and recreational fishing organizations in the Mid-Atlantic. MACAN is a nexus of scientists, tribal, federal, and state agency representatives, resource managers, and affected industry partners who seek to coordinate and guide regional observing, research, and modeling of ocean and coastal acidification. MACAN would like to gain a better understanding of how stakeholders see coastal and ocean acidification affecting business operations or recreational fishing activities now or in the future. In addition, MACAN is seeking thoughts on opportunities to raise awareness and encourage participation in regional efforts to monitor for and adapt to coastal and ocean acidification.

You can help by participating in MACAN’s Stakeholder Outreach Survey. To access the survey, click on your industry or affiliation from the list below. The survey should take about 5-10 minutes to complete. Your responses are voluntary and anonymous. Please respond by June 14, 2019.

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact survey coordinators Kirstin Wakefield at kirstin.wakefield@gmail.com or Grace Saba at saba@marine.rutgers.edu. If you’d like to learn more about MACAN, please visit www.MidACAN.org, or send an email to: info@MidACAN.org.

This survey is a collaborative effort with Rutgers University. For more information, please contact Dr. Grace Saba, Assistant Professor, Center for Ocean Observing Leadership, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, 71 Dudley Rd, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. Email: saba@marine.rutgers.edu.

Will Large Protected Areas Save the Oceans or Politicize Them?

March 25, 2019 — How can we save the oceans? They cover two-thirds of the planet, but none are safe from fishing fleets, minerals prospectors, or the insidious influences of global warming and ocean acidification.

In the past decade, there has been a push to create giant new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). They now cover nearly 9.7 million square miles, equivalent to more than the land area of North America. Cristiana Pașca Palmer, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, says the world is on course reach the convention’s target of having a tenth of the oceans protected by next year.

But questions are being raised. The growth has been driven by the formation of giant MPAs bigger than many countries, often in remote regions where the threat to biodiversity is lower. So, critics are asking, are countries creating big distant MPAs to distract attention from the harder task of protecting trashed coastal ecosystems closer to home? And is there a geopolitical game afoot, a stealth rush to control the oceans for political ends? And does that explain why half of the ocean waters covered by MPAs are in the hands of the United States and two former European colonial powers, Britain and France?

Most ocean scientists see the rush to create vast MPAs as a boon to marine conservation. They are cost-effective, connect different marine ecosystems, and encompass larger parts of the ranges of migrating species such as whales and tuna, protecting “corridors of connectivity among habitats in ways not afforded by smaller MPAs,” says Bethan O’Leary, a marine scientist at the University of York in England.

Read the full story at Yale Environment 360

Could This Tool Save Washington’s Shellfish?

February 25, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Washington is home to thousands of marine species. Salmon, crabs and bivalve shellfish like oysters and clams fuel both the aquatic food chain and human fisheries — and they thrive under stable levels of acidity, salinity and other marine growing conditions.

But over the past few decades, climate change has acidified the world’s oceans at an unprecedented rate, threatening the biodiversity that defines our region and supports these fisheries. As the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere increases, the ocean dissolves more of it at the surface — producing conditions in Puget Sound and beyond that exacerbate shell deformation, promote toxic algal blooms and create other hurdles to healthy waters. According to the Washington State Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification, 30 percent of Washington’s marine species are in danger from it.

Ultimately, stopping ocean acidification requires unprecedented international mobilization to reduce greenhouse gases. But if scientists and others could predict the complex undersea interactions that enable its worst effects, they could pull the trigger on short-term, local solutions that might help people and wildlife work around them. Researchers at the University of Washington have invented a computer model to do just that. Each day, LiveOcean compiles a vast array of ecosystemic data — currents, salinity, temperature, chemical concentrations, organic particles and more — to create a three-dimensional, 72-hour forecast for the undersea weather of the Pacific Northwest.

This is a particularly welcome tool for the state’s $270 million shellfish industry, which produces more farmed bivalves than the next two most productive states combined, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

On the shores of Puget Sound, carbon emissions, excessive nutrient runoff and warming temperatures have made waters that used to be ideal for shellfish farming less dependable, resulting in catastrophic die-offs of oyster larvae in the late 2000s. According to the University of Washington’s Washington Ocean Acidification Center (WOAC), Willapa Bay hasn’t produced any natural oysters for the majority of the past decade, forcing shellfish farmers to purchase “seeds” from hatcheries.

“We know that the seawater chemistry conditions are different now than in the preindustrial era — we see pteropods with pitting and holes in their shells that are due to corrosive seawater conditions,” WOAC Co-Director Dr. Jan Newton said by email. “The CO2 increase is largely (~90%) due to emissions from fossil fuel combustion.”

But with help from LiveOcean, aquaculture has a shot at adapting farming schedules to the ebbs and flows of mercurial ocean chemistry before more permanent solutions are in place. The state-commissioned model is designed to forecast ocean-circulation patterns and underwater environmental conditions up to three days out. Eventually, it could help everyone in the region get a better understanding of how a changing climate impacts a major source of food, funds, fun and regional pride.

Designed by 10 researchers over the course of 15 years, LiveOcean is finally available to Pacific Northwest shellfish farmers (and the public at large) ahead of the 2019 spring oyster spawning season. LiveOcean was pursued in earnestafter Gov. Jay Inslee’s 2012 Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification recommended the state “establish the ability to make short-term forecasts of corrosive conditions for application to shellfish hatcheries, growing areas and other areas of concern.” The panel created WOAC and allocated $325,000 toward LiveOcean, which is also funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration..

Understanding how water moves is essential to predicting where and when instances of high acidification will be most damaging to shellfish farms, beachgoers and more. The ocean always circulates: The currents scoop up surface water, pull it into the depths of the ocean, then dredge it upward in what LiveOcean lead researcher Parker MacCready calls “underwater rivers.” These cycles circulate water over the course of decades. When water “upwells” back to the surface, carrying nutrients and dissolved carbon dioxide, it’s been out of sight for 30 to 50 years. “It is the biggest thing controlling water properties in the Salish Sea,” MacCready says.

These days, the “river” is returning with more nutrients and carbon dioxide — reflections of increased fossil fuel use, agriculture and other human activities during the 1970s. Because we know atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased since then, scientists say we can expect to see even worse ocean acidification in the future. And the interaction between human fossil fuel output and agricultural runoff with Puget Sound’s natural geography can make things worse.

“Relative to other coastal regions, Puget Sound is somewhat different in its expression of acidification,” Newton says. “Warming can be intensified or prolonged due to Puget Sound’s retentive nature.”

A system as dynamic as Puget Sound needs dynamic monitoring, and that’s where LiveOcean comes in.

“[LiveOcean] models circulation — currents and mixing — and, at the same time, all the things that are moved with the currents: salt, heat, oxygen, nitrate, phytoplankton, zooplankton, detritus, and carbon variables like dissolved inorganic carbon [DIC, like CO2)] and alkalinity,” MacCready says. “You need to have a really big computer, and deep knowledge of many ocean processes — like physics, chemistry and biology.”

LiveOcean draws on lots of types of data. It sources real-time river-flow information from the U.S. Geological Survey and Environment Canada and three forecasts for conditions in rivers, the ocean and surface and atmosphere.

LiveOcean isn’t the only model for underwater forecasts in the Puget Sound and greater Salish Sea region, but it’s unique in significant ways. LiveOcean is the only one that publicly forecasts oxygen concentration (which decreases as acidity increases, putting animals at risk of hypoxia), pH (the primary measurement of acidity), and aragonite (the most important mineral used by oysters to build their shells, and which decreases with acidity). Acidicified water corrodes and sometimes dissolves protective shells, forcing shellfish to expend extra energy on basic life functions.

Equipped with this data, LiveOcean can be used to predict where acidified water will move throughout the coastal ocean, estuaries, the Salish Sea and ultimately 45 rivers. Shellfish growers can then ideally use that information to determine when and where they should release sensitive larvae, which spend their first few days of life developing shells and essential organs. To ensure shellfish larvae survive through their first two days of life, aquaculture managers release larvae during peak levels of photosynthesis and aragonite. When adults have to battle corrosion to keep growing, they’re not putting energy into reproducing.

“We are still working on the best way to get that to shellfish growers in a meaningful way. [Like how] some clever app developer distills all the terabytes of a weather simulation into a few useful sun and cloud icons on your phone,” MacCready says. “We are not there yet, but that is a key task for this spring.”

According to Bill Dewey, director of public affairs at Taylor Shellfish Co., shellfish hatcheries can account for the majority of acidic events by fixing water chemistry as it enters the hatcheries, making forecasts less essential to overall planning. They inject more basic (less acidic) mixtures into treatment systems, adjust pumping times, and add shell-building minerals to oyster environments.

“Where [forecasting] remains critical is for those in the industry who have what we refer to as remote setting stations,” Dewey says.

Setting stations — land-based tanks filled with mesh bags of oyster shells and heated seawater — are where oyster larvae start their lives. Operators place the free-swimming, hatchery-hatched larvae in the tanks, where they “set” by attaching themselves to discarded oyster shells and making them their own.

“They are vulnerable to all sorts of stresses as they make this difficult transition, including bad water chemistry,” he says. “These operations don’t typically have water chemistry monitoring and treatment capacity, to where LiveOcean predictions could help them ensure they are setting under optimal conditions.”

LiveOcean is also the only ocean model that forecasts for microscopic plantlike organisms called phytoplankton, which shellfish eat. Phytoplankon are the essential first link of most marine food chains: the more phytoplankton, the more organic matter in the ocean. However, this can lead to increases in algae blooms, which cover the ocean’s surface and limit oxygen and sunlight. When the blooms die, they create dead zones and add to the ocean’s mounting CO2 reserves.

While LiveOcean was developed with the shellfish industry in mind, its ability to predict water movement throughout Puget Sound makes it useful for other applications.

NOAA uses LiveOcean to track toxic algal blooms and make decisions about beach closures for coastal razor clam harvests.

LiveOcean’s forecasts also feed into tailored apps meant for tuna fishermen, boaters, beachgoers and more. It also models historical ocean events, which helps researchers make projections for how animals and substances travel through the ocean. Elizabeth Brasseale, a UW graduate student in oceanography, used LiveOcean to explore the origin of invasive green crabs that began infesting the West Coast in the late ’80s. Knowing where the crabs come from will inform attempts to eradicate them.

“Their range has been expanding, but in all that time they haven’t entered the Puget Sound,” Brasseale says. Using LiveOcean, she was able to see how the Salish Sea’s current patterns act like a force field keeping the invasive larvae out.

Some green crabs snuck into Puget Sound between 2014 and 2016, when an intermittent patch of warm water called “the Blob” appeared, mystifying oceanographers. Data from LiveOcean uncovered the conditions that allowed the infestation, and it can predict when and where it might happen again.

“By using LiveOcean as a backcast, we can see what the ocean was doing during those years that allowed the larvae to get in,” Brasseale says. “By using LiveOcean as a forecast, we can watch for recurrences of those ocean patterns and know if we’re going to be vulnerable to invasive larvae.”

LiveOcean’s potential for creating new and  extended applications is only just beginning to be explored.  Recently, parasitic burrowing shrimp have infested Pacific Northwest oyster farms. They’re usually held at bay by fresh water, and that got Dewey to thinking about how LiveOcean could investigate the problem.

“Some speculate that damming the Columbia has contributed to the proliferation of the shrimp, so there are no more floods and major freshwater events in the bays to kill the shrimp,” he says. “Perhaps with LiveOcean and knowledge of the shrimps’ life cycle, freshwater releases from the dams could be done to both benefit salmon and control shrimp.”

As more people apply the tool in different ways, a better picture of ocean dynamics will inform how humans adapt to it in the Pacific Northwest.

“[We’re developing] the ability to see seawater conditions and how they change in time and space. It is exciting that the applications are so numerous,” Newton says, noting oil spill tracking potential. “We gain very basic information on how Puget Sound functions. This tool opens doors to many new avenues of research and understanding.”

The following was released by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Scientists: Southeast Alaska vulnerable to ocean acidification

February 22, 2019 — Southeast Alaska is poised to be among the first regions in the world affected by ocean acidification.

The Alaska Ocean Acidification Network hosted a public presentation Wednesday about the phenomenon that is making ocean water more acidic, and Alaska scientists explained why Southeast is likely to be impacted more quickly than other parts of the world.

Ocean acidification occurs when water absorbs carbon dioxide, which causes the water to become more acidic, and Southeast Alaska waters are uniquely positioned to be particularly susceptible to it, said Jessica Cross, an oceanographer for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

“There’s a couple of reasons for that,” Cross said. “One of them is glacial discharge. The second reason Southeast Alaska is more vulnerable to ocean acidification than other areas around the state is because of the communities themselves. When we talk about OA risk, we’re very interested in communities that rely on threatened species or threatened marine resources for economic value, cultural perspectives or subsistence food sources.”

Also, Cross said there are a few factors that make the water in the area naturally more acidic.

“I like to say Alaska waters are old and cold,” Cross said after the presentation.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

Ocean Acidification Could Affect Pacific Cod Development

February 20, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Scientists released results of a study showing that larval Pacific cod response to elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels varies depending on its stage of development. In laboratory experiments, NOAA Fisheries scientists and partners specifically examined larval cod behavior, growth, and lipid composition (the fats needed for storing energy and building muscles). As excess CO2 from the atmosphere dissolves in the ocean, pH is lowered and the ocean increases in acidity, in a process called ocean acidification. Studies like this are important because most marine fish mortality occurs at the larval stage of development and the high-latitude oceans where Pacific cod and other important commercial fisheries occur are expected to be among the most vulnerable to ocean acidification.

“Changing environmental conditions can impact species in multiple ways and not all life stages may respond in the same way,” said Tom Hurst, NOAA Fisheries scientist and lead author of a new paper in Marine Environmental Research. “We wanted to explore this because it has implications for the sustainability of Pacific cod and other important fish stocks in Alaska.”

Hurst and a team of scientists from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center; and the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies at Oregon State University conducted two laboratory studies to evaluate larval fish sensitivity to elevated CO2.

Read the full story here

Research forms complex picture of mercury pollution in a period of global change

February 15, 2019 — Climate change and the loss of wetlands may contribute to increased levels of mercury concentrations in coastal fish, according to a Dartmouth College study.

The finding implies that forces directly associated with global change — including increased precipitation and land use modifications — will raise levels of the toxic metal that enter the marine food chain.

Estuaries, including coastal wetlands, provide much of the seafood that is harvested for human consumption and also serve as important feeding grounds for larger marine fish.

The study, published in late December in the journal Environmental Pollution, adds to the mounting body of research that indicates a complex relationship between the environment and mercury pollution.

“Estuaries provide habitat for the fish that feed our families,” said Celia Chen, director of the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program. “It’s important to understand how mercury acts within our environment, particularly under increasing climate and land use pressures.”

The Dartmouth study concludes that higher levels of mercury, and its toxic form methylmercury, are associated with higher organic carbon in coastal waters. The study also finds that this results in higher levels of mercury occurring in fish that frequent these waters.

Read the full story at Science Daily