From the University of British Columbia: Endangered Gourmet Sea Snail Could be Doomed by Increasing Ocean Acidity
Increasing levels of ocean acidity could spell doom for British Columbia’s already beleaguered northern abalone, according to the first study to provide direct experimental evidence that changing sea water chemistry is negatively affecting an endangered species.
The northern abalone–prized as a gourmet delicacy–has a range that extents along the North American west coast from Baja California to Alaska. Even though British Columbia’s northern abalone commercial fisheries where closed in 1990 to protect dwindling populations, the species has continued to struggle, largely due to poaching.
To better understand the impact climate change — and specifically, increasing ocean acidity — has on this endangered species, UBC researchers exposed northern abalone larvae to water containing increased levels of CO2. Increases from 400 to 1,800 parts per million killed 40 per cent of larvae, decreased the size of larvae that did survive, and increased the rate of shell abnormalities.
“This is quite bad news, not only in terms of the endangered populations of abalone in the wild, but also the impact it might have on the prospects for aquaculture and coastal economics,” says Christopher Harley, Associate Professor with the Department of Zoology and one of the authors of the study.
“And because the species is already thought to be limited by reproductive output and recruitment, these effects are likely to scale up to the population level, creating greater limits on population growth.”
Average CO2 levels in the open ocean hover at 380 parts per million, a number which is excepted to increase slowly over the next century.
What concerns the researchers are the much higher spikes in dissolved CO2 that are already being observed along the BC coast, particularly in late spring and early summer when northern abalone populations are spawning.
The findings were published in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology.
“While we’re looking at a single species that is culturally important as a source of food and artistic inspiration for many coastal Pacific Northwest First Nations, this information may have implications for other abalone species in other parts of the world,” says Ryan Crim, lead author on the paper who conducted the research while a graduate student with the UBC Department of Zoology.
Other species of abalone are farmed around the world, principally in China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea. The black, white and pink abalone are also endangered on the west coast–red abalone are still an economically viable food species.
The study was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and conducted in collaboration with the Bamfield-Huu-ay-aht Community Abalone Project, a small abalone hatchery in Bamfield which has subsequently gone out of business. The dual mission of the hatchery was to produce cultured abalone for high end restaurants, and to restore endangered abalone by culturing and releasing larvae and juveniles to the wild.
Harley and Crim will continue to work with the aquaculture industry to study the effects of acidification on oysters and other shellfish.
Paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022098111000499 (paywalled)
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I wonder if Canadian Abalone tastes better than Mexican Abalone? We will never know (legally at least) about American Abalone as it is illegal to catch and eat. But having eaten some Mexican Abalone (10 feet from the border no less), I can tell you it is not worth saving. It is not bad – just not worth the effort.
The shells are neat though!
Somebody remind these clowns that the measurement of saltwater pH is inherently limited in accuracy to +/- 0.2, NOT 0.02, as they seem to blithely assume. Also remind them that there’s no coral equivalent to a Physicians’ Diagnostic Manual, providing unequivocal indications that any particular reef is troubled by acidification and nothing else.
Don’t you get tired of the AGW chorus? The endless parade of corrupt temp records, misinterpreted wild-life statistics, phony computer models, and like the cherry on the cake, the dreaded ocean acidification. The more their errors are uncovered the more they double down with their sick propaganda and yellow journalism.
In case you haven’t noticed, they’re winning the war of minds at the grade-school level, with all-encompasing leftist indoctrinatin having successfully replaced education. Just wait a generation and presto!, no more skeptics.
Did the researchers then test the descendants of the survivors? I suspect that the 40% survival rate would have climbed substantially….
And 1800 ppm? At the present rate of CO2 increases (0.6%/yr), it will take 240 years to get to 1500 ppm.
This seems to be an amazingly arrogant attitude. “…it is not worth saving…just not worth the effort”
Is the concern we should have for the natural environment now predicated on whether the animals and plants nearing extinction are tasty or not?
Perhaps ‘PhilJourdan’ is making a joke.
Why not study a doubling of CO2? Why 1800 ppm, a level that probably is unrealistically high?
Heaven forbid that I’ll be short some abalone shell to use as inlay on my musical instruments. What gets me is that they artificially spike the seawater to 1400 ppm…implying that there might be a one-to-one correlation between 380 ppm in a gas and 380 ppm in a liquid. Isn’t that like comparing apples to oranges chemically? As for the late spring and early summer spikes, could they be overlooking the humic and carbonic acids shed from the coast mountains snowpack as it melts? The whole region is bordered by a rain forest, whose ongoing decomposition would release large amounts of these substances as the spring runoff spiked. I betcha.
I’m not buying the ocean-acidification crock at all. With 60,000 kilometers of mid-ocean ridges exhaling superheated acidified waters and rainforest runoff spiking the cocktail worldwide, a dumb 380, 0r 400, or 1000 ppm of ATMOSPHERIC CO2 is not going to make a snort of difference.
FAIL
PhilJourdan says:
May 25, 2011 at 11:07 am “American Abalone as it is illegal to catch and eat.”
Really? Do you have a source on that? I am just curious how they can enforce it? Or, do you mean it illegal to commercially catch and eat?
Just how many 100 million years has the northern abalone been around ?
During that time how many CO2 cycles have their been ?
or perhaps PhilJourdan just does not believe that man is capable of playing God effectively or efficiently.
It will take centuries to reach 1800 ppm. There will be plenty of adaptive evolution over 100s of generations. I bet they chose 1800 because 500 ppm has absolutely no effect.
I echo R. Shearer, why 1800 ppm? This is just so unrealistic.
Commercially – it is considered endangered.
You demand empirical evidence we are damaging the planet, but when you get some you simply dismiss it. Amazing.
I wold be willing to bet that this study fudged a few things to get the result they wanted. One wonders if the C02 was added all at once with little time for the organisms to adjust to the new conditions, or if other factors were at play. One thing is certain, that 1800 ppm number is what it took for them to get the results they needed, and not a number found in any normal habitat. I noticed that they did not quantify the “much higher spikes” in dissolved co2 being found in the environment. I wonder why?
Mike,
This was not an empirical [real world] experiment. It was an artificial construct intended to reach a preconceived conclusion. They had to go out to a preposterous 1,800 ppmv to find these minor changes, which are at best questionable.
From last year’s CO2 Science.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V13/N9/EDIT.php
Ocean acidification is crapscience. Beyond junk…
Oh one other thing what about predators- like the
Sea Otter? Poaching is rampant too…
Actually, that’s exactly what I assumed. I took “not worth the effort” to mean “not worth the price”.
A sign that the abalone have been here for a long time is that you can find them pretty much everywhere in the oceans.
To extrapolate the survival of a specie based on a poorly designed lab experiment is showing a lack of scientific rigor. Where on earth could the CO2 concentration go from 380 ppm to 1800 ppm instantly… wow! Of course there would be a lot of mortality. What is amazing is that 40$ survived. Now, give those shells time to adapt to a realistic scenario of global CO2 concentration rise and it is highly possible that they could actually do better.
You would have to excuse my skepticism of them being impartial scientists when they use unscientific essentially meaningless and intentionally inflammatory speech like “could be doomed”. They could benefit greatly from it also. The CO2 in the water isn’t 380 ppm. That is what it is in the atmosphere. In the ocean it typically exists as carbonates which is what its shell is made of. If they expose a relatively small amount of water to unrealistically high atmosphere CO2, it is not surprising that they might cause problems with some of the larva. The extra calcium and buffers in an open ocean would probably translate that into increased shell growth. At least they didn’t just add hydrochloric acid to the water and then claim they were doomed. That still doesn’t translate to the open ocean even if we could raise the atmospheric CO2 to 1800 ppm. If they are ignorant enough to use such unscientific speech, they are probably not scientific enough to control the other variables.
That is what passes for science these days? It sounds more like a political speech from a twelve year old.
I am sure they aren’t biased. It isn’t like their job of restoring abalone doesn’t depend on them being threatened. /sarc
I have no idea if PhilJourdan was joking or not, but even if he was I’m in favor of his post. Survival of the Tastiest. That’s the way to save an endangered species.
Just for your information:
“…1.5 inch abalone may spawn 10,000 eggs or more at a time, while an 8 inch abalone may spawn 11 million or more……………….. abalone and most mollusks are prolific spawners but the natural mortality still probably exceeds 99%…”
¿what are these guys talking about the 40%?
From 400 to 1800 ppm of CO2?
Over what period of time?
Never mind the abalone – what effect would that have on MAN?
How would those scientists react if they were immersed in water with a 1800 ppm CO2 level?
Probably have a much higher mortality rate…
Any time fish, and probably mollusks, are subjected to a rapid change in their environment, there tends to be a die-off, based on my limited experience with tropical fish. I suspect Abalone would not respond well to a rapid change in the chemistry of their water. A slow change, over a number of generations, would undoubtedly result in an entirely different outcome.
Anyway, it’s likely that pollution, disease, predators, and over-fishing are the primary cause of any current decline. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S_Ej6uc6sw
Eric Gisin says:
May 25, 2011 at 11:44 am
It will take centuries to reach 1800 ppm. There will be plenty of adaptive evolution over 100s of generations. I bet they chose 1800 because 500 ppm has absolutely no effect.
if anyone is taking votes, I vote with Eric Gisin on this puppy. I have worked with lots of folks in bio labs. most of the time, the goal is to get something, anything, published. the fact that it may be some useless BS will never be allowed to interfer with the job at hand.
There’s no question that red and white abalone have both been decimated in shallower waters since the 1960s. What used to be free lunch for impecunious grad students with nothing more than a snorkel has now become superexpensive gourmet fare–if you can find it at all? What an irony of consumer demand!