Saving Seafood

Can kelp help protect shellfish from ocean acidification?

February 27, 2020 — Marine scientist Susie Arnold of the Island Institute will discuss research about kelp farming and ocean acidification Monday, March 9 at 5 p.m. at the MDI Biological Laboratory, as part of the laboratory’s Science Café series.

Maine’s scenic coastlines and long-established fisheries contribute to the state’s economy, making Maine vulnerable to the effects of ocean acidification from both an environmental and socio-economic perspective.

To address this vulnerability, Maine was the first East Coast state to convene a legislatively established commission, tasked with understanding increased ocean acidification and the potential impacts on commercially important species.

Arnold has been part of a joint research effort, undertaken by Island Institute, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and aquaculture industry collaborators, to better understand the role of growing and harvesting macroalgae in capturing carbon, and to determine potential benefits of co-cultivating kelp or other macrophytes alongside farmed shellfish.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Climate Change Doesn’t Have To Be Dire For Seafood, Researchers Say

January 29, 2020 — The increasingly worrisome impacts of climate change may not mean the end of seafood on our plates, a new study suggests. In a new paper entitled The Future Of Food From The Sea, researchers found that the ocean could supply over six times the amount of food that it does today—that’s 364 metric tons of protein—but only if we change the way we govern, manage and consume the world’s fish supply. To put it bluntly—if a little too simply—if you’re ready to eat less wild Atlantic salmon and more sustainably farmed seaweed and mussels, keep on reading.

“We’re all used to headlines in the newspaper about the demise of the oceans,” lamented Christopher Costello, PhD, an economist and one of the lead authors of the study who presented the findings on January 16 at the Washington, D.C. offices of the World Resources Institute. “It’s easy to come away from those headlines, many of which I think are quite accurate, thinking a sustainable future ocean will provide less food,” he added. But this shrinking ocean-based food supply isn’t a given, urged Costello. Just the opposite could be true, in fact.

“Food from the sea is uniquely poised to contribute to food security,” Costello explained, because it has a low carbon footprint, is highly nutritious and is far more environmentally efficient to produce as compared to other animal proteins.

Read the full story at Forbes

The Pacific Ocean is so acidic that it’s dissolving Dungeness crabs’ shells

January 28, 2020 — The Pacific Ocean is becoming more acidic, and the cash-crabs that live in its coastal waters are some of its first inhabitants to feel its effects.

The Dungeness crab is vital to commercial fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, but lower pH levels in its habitat are dissolving parts of its shell and damaging its sensory organs, a new study found.

Their injuries could impact coastal economies and forebode the obstacles in a changing sea. And while the results aren’t unexpected, the study’s authors said the damage to the crabs is premature: The acidity wasn’t predicted to damage the crabs this quickly.

“If the crabs are affected already, we really need to make sure we pay much more attention to various components of the food chain before it is too late,” said study lead author Nina Bednarsek, a senior scientist with the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project.

The findings were published this month in the journal Science of the Total Environment and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The agency studies ocean acidification and how changing pH levels are impacting coasts.

Read the full story at CNN

Crab larvae off Oregon and Washington suffering shell damage from ocean acidification, new research shows

January 27, 2020 — Ocean acidification is damaging the shells of young Dungeness crab in the Northwest, an impact that scientists did not expect until much later this century, according to new research.

A study released this week in the journal Science of the Total Environment is based on a 2016 survey of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia coastal waters that examined larval Dungeness. The findings add to the concerns about the future of the Dungeness as atmospheric carbon dioxide — on the rise due to fossil-fuel combustion — is absorbed by the Pacific Ocean and increases acidification.

“If the crabs are affected already, we really need to make sure we start to pay attention to various components of the food chain before it is too late,” said Nina Bednarsek, the lead author among 13 contributing scientists. The study was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

West Coast waters acidifying two times faster than global average

January 17, 2020 — New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association shows waters off the coast of California are acidifying at twice the rate of the global average.

NOAA researchers studied sediment from the Santa Barbara Channel and using 100 years worth of microscopic shells were able to show the acidification rate was two times that of other oceans around the world.

Shellfish are the species most immediately impacted by ocean acidification. More acidic waters make it difficult for animals like, starfish, mussels, and scallops to build their shells.

Ocean acidification is simple chemical process, seawater absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and becomes more acidic. Humans have sped up the rate of ocean acidification thanks to global carbon emissions. Since the industrial revolution ocean acidity has increased by 25%, which is greater than at any other time in the last two million years.

Read the full story at KSBW

More than just temperature change at work as climate change hits salmon, research shows

January 17, 2020 — The four-year EU research project ClimeFish has established that there will be more factors than just water temperature at play as the full effects of climate change hit Norwegian salmon over the next five decades.

According to Elisabeth Ytteborg, a scientist at the research group Nofima, who collaborated with the UK’s University of Stirling on the project, local factors play a much bigger role than previously assumed on fish health as marine temperatures rise.

Although it has previously been determined that salmon die when water temperature hits 23°C, there has reportedly been a case that saw salmon died at a significantly lower temperature, 20°C.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Investigating the Effects of Ocean Acidification on Atlantic Sea Scallops

January 16, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

On a gray December day, students, faculty, and NOAA scientists packed Massachusetts Maritime Academy’s aquaculture lab. They worked shoulder to shoulder to answer high-stakes questions. The eight-week experiment, led by NOAA research chemist Shannon Meseck, was the first to directly measure the response of juvenile Atlantic sea scallops to ocean acidification.

Modeling studies have projected the effects of ocean acidification on the sea scallop fishery, but these analyses depended on data collected from other shellfish species. “Research is beginning to show that shellfish have species-dependent responses to ocean acidification. This experiment will give more definitive results that can be used to determine the effects on the fishery,” explained research chemist Matt Poach.

Partnering with the Massachusetts Maritime Academy

The project required coordination between NOAA’s Milford Lab and the Academy, including many trips shuttling people, samples, and algal cultures between Cape Cod and Connecticut. Students at the Academy—called cadets—cared for the animals, grew algae to supplement their diet, and took frequent water samples.

While the research team conducted similar experiments on surfclams and oysters at the Milford Lab, raising sea scallops requires cooler temperatures and oceanic, rather than estuarine, conditions.

“The location of the Academy on Buzzards Bay was ideal for sea scallop experiments because of the availability of pumped, unfiltered seawater in the right temperature and salinity range,” noted Milford Lab Director Gary Wikfors.

Research chemist George Sennefelder and technician Dylan Redman built two ocean acidification exposure systems at the Milford Lab. They also designed and built a smaller system to fit the Academy’s aquaculture lab.

The lab sits by the dock, in the shadow of the training vessel TS Kennedy. “The Aquaculture and Marine Sciences Laboratory is a surprisingly adaptable space for hard science,” observed Professor William Hubbard, who headed up the partnership for the Academy. “Seawater, electricity, aging pipes, and New England weather challenge the lab, but NOAA easily installed their customized system and it runs well.”

Read the full release here

Earth’s oceans are hotter than ever — and getting warmer faster

January 14, 2020 — The world’s oceans hit their warmest level in recorded history in 2019, according to a study published Monday that provides more evidence that Earth is warming at an accelerated pace.

The analysis, which also found that ocean temperatures in the last decade have been the warmest on record, shows the impact of human-caused warming on the planet’s oceans and suggests that sea-level rise, ocean acidification and extreme weather events could worsen as the oceans continue to absorb so much heat.

“The pace of warming has increased about 500 percent since the late 1980s,” said one of the study’s authors, John Abraham, a professor of thermal sciences at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. “The findings, to be honest, were not unexpected. Warming is continuing, it has accelerated, and it is unabated. Unless we do something significant and quickly, it’s really dire news.”

Abraham and his colleagues found that the rate of ocean warming accelerated from 1987 to 2019 to nearly 4½ times the rate of warming from 1955 to 1986.

Read the full story at NBC News

Ocean acidification could cost the U.S. billions of dollars

January 6, 2020 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is warning that carbon dioxide emissions and ocean acidification are occurring at unprecedented rates and could cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars as fisheries from Alaska to Florida are threatened.

In a new report that draws on hundreds of studies detailing how NOAA will monitor the impact of ocean acidification on the U.S. over the next 10 years, the agency warns that it “will likely affect commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing, tourism and coral ecosystems.”

Ocean acidification has a significant impact on sea life crucial to thriving seafood industries, including Dungeness crab, Alaska king crab, New England Atlantic sea scallop and a myriad of other species including mussels, clams and oysters. It makes it difficult for organisms to build shells and skeletons.

The report says profitable commercial fisheries in California, Oregon and Washington are at risk, but U.S. regions particularly endangered are Alaska, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Read the full story at The Hill

Ocean Acidification Threatens the U.S. Economy

January 3, 2020 — Ocean acidification threatens to cause billions of dollars in damage to the U.S. economy, harming everything from crabs in Alaska to coral reefs in Florida and the Caribbean, NOAA researchers said in a new report.

Carbon dioxide emissions and ocean acidification are occurring at an “unprecedented” rate, deteriorating valuable fisheries and tourist destinations across the United States and its territories, NOAA said in a draft research plan for ocean acidification.

“Commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing [and] tourism and coral ecosystems” will likely be damaged by ocean acidification, the plan said. Multibillion-dollar fisheries such as West Coast Dungeness crab, Alaska king crab and New England sea scallops are vulnerable. So are Florida’s coral reefs, an asset valued at $8.5 billion.

Implicating human activities such as burning fossil fuels, the plan said that ocean acidification “is driven by the growing amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide absorbed and dissolved in the upper ocean.” Ocean acidification makes it hard for some marine organisms such as lobsters, oysters and coral to build shells and skeletons.

Read the full story at Scientific American