Acid Oceans Harm More Species
By Tim Radford, Climate News Network
LONDONThe chemistry of the oceans is changing. And it isnt just the corals and the baby oysters that are unhappy. It makes juvenile rockfish really anxious, and it upsets the digestion of sea urchins.
The pH (a measure of acidity the lower the pH, the more acid the water) of the planets oceans is dropping rapidly, largely because the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are increasing. Since carbon dioxide dissolves in water to form carbonic acid, the seas are responding to global change.
The first and clearest victims are likely to be the corals, which are adapted to a specific value of pH in the oceans, but there have also been problems reported by oyster farmers.
Now Martin Tresguerres of the University of California, San Diego reports in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that at least one species of juvenile fish responds badly to the changes in ocean chemistry. ....................(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/acid_oceans_harm_more_species_20131207