Crabs, supersized by carbon pollution, may upset Chesapeake’s balance

[xchrom]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/2013/04/07/a0c29f48-972f-11e2-b68f-dc5c4b47e519_story.html?tid=ts_carousel


Alyssa A. Botelho/The Washington Post - A bushel of male blue crabs in Morgantown, Md. In the Chesapeake Bay region, Virginia and Maryland are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into rebuilding the populations of blue crabs and oysters for future generations.

It is the dawn of the super crab.

Crabs are bulking up on carbon pollution that pours out of power plants, factories and vehicles and settles in the oceans, turning the tough crustaceans into even more fearsome predators.

That presents a major problem for the Chesapeake Bay, where crabs eat oysters. In a life-isn’t-fair twist, the same carbon that crabs absorb to grow bigger stymies the development of oysters.

“Higher levels of carbon in the ocean are causing oysters to grow slower, and their predators — such as blue crabs — to grow faster,” Justin Baker Ries, a marine geologist at the University of North Carolina’s Aquarium Research Center, said in an recent interview.

[Botany]

1. I will work 24/7 on slowing down the blue crab population

*******

although this is bad because the oysters filter the bay's water

[xchrom]

2. ima gonna have to eat more crab cakes

[Botany]

3. you are a patriot

crab imperial isn't bad either.

[xchrom]

4. i love my country...and po'boys