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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Mike says:
May 25, 2011 at 11:52 am
You demand empirical evidence we are damaging the planet, but when you get some you simply dismiss it. Amazing.
When we get some, I’ll let you know.
If we boil the water I bet the survival rate goes down as well.
Show me where Humans are causing 1800 ppm levels using empirical evidence.
Show me how humans are measurably acidifying the oceans using empirical evidence to an accuracy of +/- 0.1 PH.
Find another bridge troll.
The paleo records clearly show that PH levels were less caustic in the past and shell fish survived very well, thank you very much.
What these so called scientists forget is that not all abalone are the same. Some will carry the genes to thrive in lower PH oceans, some will carry the genes to survive in higher PH oceans. Having already survived both, they will adapt. In any case, no true scientist would refer to neutralization of a base as acidification.
Really what we are discussing here is not abaloney, at is simply baloney.
I found it interesting that this is associated with food sources. Fits quite well with the Bolivia/UN push for “rights” for the other inhabitants of the 3rd rock from the sun. Pretty soon we won’t be able to eat anything except each other. I’ll have my soylent green over easy, please.
They’re talking about dissolved CO2, not pH. Ever hear of a buffered system? Personally I don’t believe it would be possible to “acidify” the ocean with any amount of CO2 that could be reasonably be achieved in the atmosphere.
Some here are pointing out the silliness of the 1800 PPM number, but the 400 PPM number is just as silly. Do you guys have any idea of what it would take to rise the dissolved CO2 content of the HIGHLY buffered and organically active solution that is seawater up to 400 PPM?
Mike says:
May 25, 2011 at 11:52 am
“You demand empirical evidence we are damaging the planet, but when you get some you simply dismiss it.”
Now see:-
“Harley and Crim will continue to work with the aquaculture industry to study the effects of acidification on oysters and other shellfish.”
This is empirical evidence of shameless employment of another facet of the AGW scam in order to save a couple more idiots having to get a real job.
The new Canadian Govt. may however have better ways to waste tax money.
The northern or pinto abalone is not endangered or concidered a delicacy. Commercial fishing has been closed due to declines but recreational fishing remains.
The white abalone is. They ranged from southern california to Baja. Discovered in 1940 they were nearly fished out in 7 years. They were placed on the endangered species list in 2001.
If it is an endangered species, why are they allowed to be eaten. Seems like the Sea otter population needs to be culled.
It seems to me that in a real ocean exposed to an atmoshphere of elevated CO2, the increased rate of photosynthesis would more than offset the increase in bicarbonate concentration.
I hope no Abalones were made to suffer during the course of this investigation.
OK. For our next realistic experiment, let’s see how they do in boiling water.
As a wise man once said, Ah baloney.
My now ex-boss used to have a prawn farm. He fed his prawns on phytoplankton that he also farmed. To increase the yield of phytoplankton, he injected extra CO2 into the ponds. One of the things that made me sceptical of the recent claim that phytoplankton had declined 50% in the world’s oceans. The CO2 increase over the last century should have led to an increase.
REPLY: It has, see this. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/the-earths-biosphere-is-booming-data-suggests-that-co2-is-the-cause-part-2/
The claim of CO2 causing phytoplankton reduction is Alarmist BS – Anthony
During the early colonial era, in Mass. it was forbidden in at least one town to force your indentured servants to eat lobster more than three times per week!
They should do a study on the effect of prozac on abalone instead. Apparently prozac is really bad for mollusks even in the ppb.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/05/11052-prozac-drugs-water-great-lakes-erie/
Erik Ramberg says: May 25, 2011 at 11:19 am : “Is the concern we should have for the natural environment now predicated on whether the animals and plants nearing extinction are tasty or not?”
That, or whether or not they’re cute.
Sure.
“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. [Next breath:]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.”
Shutting down commercial fisheries seemed like a good idea, and Canadians sacrificed their freedom and their jobs and expanded government on the advice of “concerned researchers.” But theeeeeeeeen the law of unintended consequences kicked in and unfortunately poaching was a problem. And nooooooow, “concerned researchers” realize that the reeeeeeaaal problem is actually:
[sound of opening envelope]
your house and your car.
“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.”
OH No, CO2 is spiking in late spring!
Another story from the National Enquirer/Daily Mail school of scientific enquiry.
Go scuba north ca. coast millions of red at 40 plus feet. Seen them !
Victoria, B.C. has dumped raw sewage into the Juan de Fuca Strait since the founding of the city. In 2007 it was dumping 129 million litres per day.
“The environment report, by MacDonald Environmental Services in Nanaimo, showed years of flushing Greater Victoria’s toilets into the ocean has created contaminated seabed sites full of unsafe levels of toxins such as copper, mercury and lead. That report was released publicly July 26, 2006.”
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/features/sewage/story.html?id=6944f801-be05-424b-939d-ea7896c00f59
and from here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012735281_sewage27.html
British Columbia officials said the government’s approval is a key step toward getting federal and regional money for the 782 million Canadian dollar ($738 million) project and allows them to meet a commitment to provide wastewater treatment by 2016.
2016? Okay, then – I’ll pass on the B.C. seafood. I went this route as other’s comments have said many of the things I might have said.
And for Mike @11:52 am: So many things damage the planet and we know for sure that they do (as raw sewage) and we know how to fix them. Research talent, money, and time are wasted on silly CO2 studies (1800 ppm ! ?) while other things get pushed aside. “Amazing” indeed.
These guys so underestimate the power of evolution. You’d think they never heard of Punctuated Equilibrium (which requires high mortality).
DesertYote says:
Some here are pointing out the silliness of the 1800 PPM number, but the 400 PPM number is just as silly. Do you guys have any idea of what it would take to rise the dissolved CO2 content of the HIGHLY buffered and organically active solution that is seawater up to 400 PPM?
++++++++++
Agreed. I am interested to know how much CO2 it would take to increase the well-mixed ocean from 380 to 400 ppm. I don’t think it would take only a few centuries, if it could be done at all, ever.
This is from RealClimate of all places: “The natural pH of the ocean is determined by a need to balance the deposition and burial of CaCO3 on the sea floor against the influx of Ca2+ and CO32- into the ocean from dissolving rocks on land, called weathering. These processes stabilize the pH of the ocean, by a mechanism called CaCO3 compensation. CaCO3 compensation works on time scales of thousands of years or so. Because of CaCO3 compensation, the oceans were probably at close to their present pH of around 8 [where it is now – CiW] even millions of years ago when atmospheric CO2 was 10 times the present value or whatever it was.”
So we need to know two things: how much CO2 would it take to increase from 380 to 400 ppm (remember the oceans weigh thousands of times as much as the atmosphere) and how much more would be needed to overcome all the buffering that could be accomplished by the time (many millenia) that the CO2 rose to 400 ppm.
The article above is a silly as most of the rest of the article at RC. Have a look:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/the-acid-ocean-the-other-problem-with-cosub2sub-emission/
I say it is silly because it correctly describes the mechanisms for ocean pH and then proposes an impossible, alarmist rate of CO2 gain with no real numbers included so you won’t see the sleight of hand.
Further, the creation of 1800 ppm CO2 seawater: was the solution buffered properly as would have happened naturally? What happens to abalone when they live in realistic conditions of 1800 ppm, assuming it is possible to get there in the next couple of million years? And where will that massive amount of carbon-doxide come from? Venus? If you burned every cup of natural gas, litre of oil, kilo of coal and the twigs of every tree, it would not produce enough CO2 to bring seawater to 1800 ppm. Even at 1800 they only achieved LD40. I’d say the abalone is safe from everything except direct harvesting.
And pray tell how do they match this up with global warming. If the water is warmer, it will not dissolve as much CO2 for a given pressure. Now if you pardon me, I will have a swig of 2 cents plain aka carbonic acid.
The CO2 content of seawater is 90 ppm.
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/oceano/seawater.htm
Carl Bussjaeger:
remember Limbaughs’ first rule of economics:
if you want a critter to flourish, eat it on a commercial basis.
C
Hmmm, what was the atmospheric CO2 content when abalone first appeared?
So far I have:
and
CO2 levels were much higher 70-100 million years ago.
I believe the abalone will do just fine, thank you.
References: Lindberg 1992