Ocean Acidificaton Hits Atlantic Cod Populations Harder Than Thought; Lifelong Organ Damage
Research over the past few years has shown that ocean acidification impacts Atlantic cod at the earliest stages of their lives, while they are still eggs and larvae. Scientists hoped that those cod who managed to reach maturity might be helping the species adapt to the conditions brought on by global climate change. But new research appears to have dashed those hopes.
Earth’s oceans absorb as much as one-third of the excess carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by human activities. When that CO2 reacts with water, it forms carbonic acid, lowers the pH level of marine waters, and thus makes the oceans more acidic. While marine species can shift their ranges to avoid the warmer water temperatures driven by climate change, there is no way for them to escape ocean acidification.
For a 2016 study, Martina Stiasny of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, a research institute in Kiel, Germany, led a research team that conducted experiments with Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) caught from two wild populations in the Western Baltic and the Barents Sea. The researchers determined that, at the ocean acidification levels expected by the end of the century if we do nothing to draw down C02 emissions, twice as many cod larvae will die within their first 25 days, causing the number of cod who reach maturity and reproduce to drop by 8 and 24 percent for the Western Baltic and Barents Sea populations, respectively.
Stiasny was among the scientists who’d hoped that those cod larvae that did make it to adulthood would help make their population more resilient. “So far, we liked to believe that at least the larvae that survived would be able to deal with these conditions, and could have, across generations, allowed the species to adapt,” she said in a statement. But a new study Stiasny led, which was published in the journal Global Change Biology last month, found that surviving cod larvae suffer significant organ damage and developmental delays that could cause problems throughout their lifetimes.
EDIT
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/ocean-acidification-could-impacts-atlantic-cod-populations-more-severely-than-previously-thought/
= new reply since forum marked as read
The orange shitgibbon is working as hard as he can to speed up the complete destruction of our entire global ecosystem.
The collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery in 1992 was toast for the species from an economic sustainable species point of view.
Imagine being a fish, fish egg or larvae under the influence of a wastewater treatment plant discharge loaded with all the prescription we humans use. From valium to viagra to blood pressure to cancer medicines. Wastewater treatment does not remove the chemicals in our medicines. In short, our fisheries are screwed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery
