Plymouth Marine Lab Scientist Warns Shellfish Industry Of Likely Extinction Of Mussels, Scallops

[hatrack]

Prized as a luxury treat in the best restaurants and a staple food in the human diet for thousands of years, oysters and mussels are now being threatened by rising levels of carbon dioxide. By the end of the century many popular seafood dishes will disappear from our tables as shellfish become increasingly scarce, scientists warn.

They have found that the build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing the oceans to grow more acidic as increasing amounts of the gas dissolve in sea water. This change is reducing the ability of shellfish to make their protective shells. By 2100 some waters are expected to be corrosive enough to cause the shells to dissolve completely, making it impossible for them to survive. Marine biologists warn that this could have a devastating effect on the ocean environment, as other creatures that eat shellfish will find food increasingly scarce while corals, which make reefs, will also be unable to build their hard external skeletons.

Dr Carol Turley, from Plymouth Marine Laboratory, will tell a conference of doctors at the Royal Society of Medicine that climate change is likely to have a profound effect on human ability to use the oceans as a source of food. Speaking ahead of the conference later this month, she said the fishing industry would struggle to find supplies of scallops, mussels and oysters for restaurant tables due to ocean acidification.

She said: "The oceans take up carbon dioxide as we produce more and more into the atmosphere. They have already taken up half of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. "The problem this causes has only really emerged very recently.

EDIT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/04/eamussels104.xml

[kestrel91316]

1. When Ralphie can't get his imported strawberries in January and his

oysters on the half shell every week, maybe he will wake up and smell the coffee. But I kind of doubt it.

[tom_paine]

2. The next great extinction isn't coming. It's already here.

n/t