From Yale University: Fish of Antarctica threatened by climate change
A Yale-led study of the evolutionary history of Antarctic fish and their “anti-freeze” proteins illustrates how tens of millions of years ago a lineage of fish adapted to newly formed polar conditions – and how today they are endangered by a rapid rise in ocean temperatures.
“A rise of 2 degrees centigrade of water temperature will likely have a devastating impact on this Antarctic fish lineage, which is so well adapted to water at freezing temperatures,” said Thomas Near, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and lead author of the study published online the week of Feb. 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The successful origin and diversification into 100 species of fish, collectively called notothenioids, is a textbook case of how evolution operates. A period of rapid cooling led to mass extinction of fish acclimated to a warmer Southern Ocean. The acquisition of so-called antifreeze glycoproteins enabled notothenioids to survive in seas with frigid temperatures. As they adapted to vacant ecological niches, new species of notothenioids arose and contributed to the rich biodiversity of marine life found today in the waters of Antarctica.
Notothenioids account for the bulk of the fish diversity and are a major food source for larger predators, including penguins, toothed whales, and seals. Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History has one of the most important collections of these specimens in the world.
However, the new study suggests the acquisition of the antifreeze glycoproteins 22 to 42 million years ago was not the only reason for the successful adaptation of the Antarctic notothenioids. The largest radiation of notothenioid fish species into new habitats occurred at least 10 million years after the first appearance of glycoproteins, the study found.
“The evolution of antifreeze was often thought of as a ‘smoking gun,’ triggering the diversification of these fishes, but we found evidence that this adaptive radiation is not linked to a single trait, but to a combination of factors,” Near said.
This evolutionary success story is threatened by climate change that has made the Southern Ocean around Antarctica one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth. The same traits that enabled the fish to survive and thrive on a cooling earth make them particularly susceptible to a warming one, notes Near.
“Given their strong polar adaptations and their inability to acclimate to warmer water temperatures, climate change could devastate this most interesting lineage of fish with a unique evolutionary history,” Near said.
Yale-affliated authors of the study are Alex Dornburg, Kristen L. Kuhn, and Jillian N. Pennington.
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I have to wonder though, what warming/climate change in Antarctica?
Maybe they are thinking of the surface record on the peninsula, where the greatest concentration of research stations, people, and energy use is. The air temperature there shows an increase.
But sea temperature near the peninsula doesn’t seem to be on the rise:
Or maybe they’ve spent too much time looking at Eric Steig’s graph:
Real Climate’s Dr. Eric Steig’s version, 2009 – from the cover of Nature
Instead of the one from 2004 before the Mannian PCA team math was applied to it:
Of course we now know thanks to O’Donnell et al that the whole “Antarctica is warming” theme from Steig and the team was just another statistical fabrication of air temperature.
Condon and O”Donnell’s Antarctic temperature profile, 2010.
It seems all the warming is in the peninsula, in the air temperature record, where all the people and energy use to keep them warm is.
Antarctica as a whole is not warming much at the surface, and as the UAH lower troposphere graph shows, not at all above the surface.
Antarctic sea ice seems to agree, it has an upward trend:
Joshua Corning makes an excellent point in comments:
“tens of millions of years ago a lineage of fish adapted to newly formed polar conditions”
“A rise of 2 degrees centigrade of water temperature will likely have a devastating impact on this Antarctic fish lineage”
That is weird…one wonders how they survived the far greater temperature changes over the past 20 million years.
You know…when Antarctica melted then froze gain….(image from Wikipedia)
A physicist says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:38 am ……………………………….
Is there anywhere that you have read of a mechanism this century that could raise sea temperature by 2c at 200 – 800m water depth in Antarctica? How about next century?
Evolution and global warming theory are birds of a feather with equal credibility and apparently of equal collusion.
My mistake collusion is secret cooperation between two parties for an illegal or dishonest purpose. More accurately they are selling a non-product that is often used in advertising except the buyer knows what he or she is buying.
Non-products are intended to promote the goals of the agency paying for the advertisement, whether that is environmental awareness or health care. An unethical use of such advertisement would be overstating or changing the facts. This of course has nothing to do with consumers until the force of government imposes their authority on the people in support of the non-product that does not exist.
Hi Ian, read the following:
via
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/10/biases-in-antarctic-weather-stations-reported-up-to-10%C2%B0c/
The peninsula is warming at certain hotspots it seems. ;>)
Dang. I just collected science articles and lo and behold one of them is this exact story. No wonder these kids think it’s real.
Sheesh.
A physicist says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:38 am
johanna says: What nonsense. Leaving aside the improbability of the Antarctic oceans warming 2 degrees, there are pretty much no fish species that cannot withstand temperature fluctuations of that order. They do so all the time, just swimming around.
How anybody with even an undergraduate biology degree would put their name to this stuff is baffling. They have no sense of shame at all.
Johanna, with respect, perhaps “they” (but who is “they”?) merely have a sense of the biosphere?
* Accelerated warming of the Southern Ocean and its impacts on the hydrological cycle and sea ice
Also, when the seawater temperature drops from one degree above the freezing temperature of flesh, to one degree below that freezing temperature … well … isn’t that a pretty big difference two-degree difference, just by plain everyday common-sense?
As for your broad point regarding shame versus pride, Johanna, most folks (skeptic and nonskeptic alike) *do* appreciate that excessive confidence, that is not founded upon rationality, is not particularly deserving of pride.
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To clear up the first point, ‘they’ are the authors of this silly paper. I am not sure what ‘a sense of the biosphere’ means, so I will pass on that one.
I fail to see what Curry and Liu’s paper has to do with the likelihood of extinction of this ugly (but apparently tasty) fish. The record tells us that it is a great survivor. Anyone with a passing knowledge of ocean fish knows that they routinely experience temperature changes of 2C just by swimming around. Long distance travellers like great white sharks experience much greater temperature differences – from the cold Southern oceans to the tropics – in a few weeks. And yes, I know a shark is not a fish in the strict sense, but can’t see why that matters in this context.
You seem to be suggesting that this fish can only function when its handy anti-freeze adaption is called for. The natural world is full of animals and plants that can survive quite well in both below and above freezing temperatures. They do not have a switch that activates when the thermometer on our back verandah says 0 degrees. They are adapted to a range of temperatures which is much wider than a degree plus or minus the freezing point of water. My birch trees experience 40 degrees in summer and minus ten in winter.
These fish may or may not be able adapt to tropical sea temperatures, but in the unlikely event of mean Antarctic sea temperatures rising by 2 degrees, my money is on the fish.
I say decelerated warming of the Southern Ocean and its impacts on the hydrological cycle and sea ice or better still cooling sea surface temperature.
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/13-southern.png
Where was the study published? Is it peer reviewed? Any data? Science by press release? When will the water the fish live in be two degrees warmer?
100 species??? Thats a lie. Their are only 50 species in 8 genera in Nototheniidae. I don’t have time to research, but I would put money down that the only reason that the count is so high is because of splitters. If the moonbats had their way every sub-population would be a species.
@Matthew Burbine says:
February 14, 2012 at 7:40 am
A simple compound as Glycerol (propanetriol) will do the trick.
eyesonu says:
February 14, 2012 at 6:37 am
Has anyone ever cooked a penguin?
Some members of Shackleton’s crew, from 21 Nov 1915 until 30 Aug 1916, lived on the Antarctic ice or Elephant Island (from 24 Apr 1916). They survived mainly by eating seal and penguin, as well as the expedition’s surviving dogs. I am unsure of the fate of the ships pussy cat.
Ian H says:
February 14, 2012 at 2:53 am
You repeatedly mention the Antarctic peninsula as being “where the people and energy use is”. I believe you are making a false implication here.
What Anthony actually said was, “Maybe they are thinking of the surface record on the peninsula, where the greatest concentration of research stations, people, and energy use is. The air temperature there shows an increase.” And then after the graphs that illustrate the point, “It seems all the warming is in the peninsula, in the air temperature record, where all the people and energy use to keep them warm is.”
IH, your ability to read your prejudices into simple statements, combined with blinders that allow for only one interpretation is amazing to behold. Facts, as someone once said, are stubborn things. Is it a fact that most of the warming in Antarctica is along the Antarctic Peninsula? Is it a fact that most of the people in Antarctica are along Antarctic Peninsula? Is it a fact that most of the energy used in Antarctica is used in the area where the most people are? If all of those things are facts, your whining about what you think Anthony implied is pointless and irritating. Get over it. They are facts.
Anthony’s point seems to be that the vast bulk of Antarctica is not warming. The ocean around Antarctica especially is not warming. Therefore the Antarctic Antifreeze Fish is not in danger! The straining at gnats that goes on here by purportedly smart people is taxing at times. Here’s an idea…let’s start looking for camels.
Of course the dear folks from Yale with their ‘study’ need to explain how they know that the DNA of the ubiquitous antifreeze fish has changed from the time that it began to adapt to the colder water, somehow rendering it incapable of adapting to the mythical warming water that is now on the horizon. As recall from my time in the distant past with my high school biology teacher, the peppered moth in Manchester was the classic example of adaptation to the environment. The moths went from primarily light colored to primarily dark colored and now back to primarily light colored. They did not get stuck in the carboneria mode and were not able to make another adaptation. When these scientists have done the field study that carries some conclusive proof that all of the Antarctic Antifreeze Fish have lost their ability to adapt they can make the claim of endangerment. Then they will only have left to prove that there is warming on the climate horizon.
A video that will help folks appreciate the sub-freezing temperatures to which these fish are uniquely adapted is from (wonderful) BBC Planet Earth series, namely the sequence titled Brinicle – Underwater icicle of death .
No more ‘brinicles’ 
no more notothenioids.
No more ice
Jimbo, every American can call-to-mind citizen-scientists who think ahead on century (and longer) time-frames. These foresighted citizen-scientists *do* tend to be pretty independent-minded in their politics, though. 🙂 🙂
It is doubtful that ice fish as an assemblage is in any near term danger given its range of depths, habitats etc and the speed it has shown in radiation over the last 20 million years. While the majority of Notothenoids (ice fish) live in very cold water there are sub-polar species living in water as warm as 10C- so while warming theoretically has the potential to impact some species- it is doubtful any envisioned warming could be a threat to the survival of the sub-Order on any near term timeline. Its a fish that can teach us much about cold adaptation, blood oxygen, and evolution. We should not ask it to teach more than it can.
The ice fish evolved because of rapid climate change. They are a flock species – having rapidly filled the niche created- as the Yale article states from “the niches left by fish decimated by cold water environment.” (I think they are polyploids which would foster rapid speciation of a newly created niche) This would make this assemblage (flock) akin to what we see in Lake Malawi or Tanganyika- and on land the Darwin finches of the Galapagos. All the fish being highly related. (It is also important to understand that decimated ecosystems are rapidly filled (from a geological perspective) by new adaptive species. The ice fish would not be among us unless those occupying the Antarctic were “decimated.”
Most of the Antarctic biomass (and fish forage base) is represented by a single species -Pleuragramma antarctica. It shows the same antifreeze qualities of its related kin and according to IUCN its population is stable and not threatened. Unlike many other ice fish this one has pelagic tendencies and can be found in surface waters making it the most vulnerable to predation by penguins and seals.
The great depths inhabited by ice fish (the spiny icefish and dragon fish mentioned above are found as deep as 900m) should caution against using any surface records in population risk assessments.
The claim by the Yale researchers “Notothenioids …… are a major food source for larger predators, including penguins, toothed whales, and seal” requires qualification. With the exception of the meat eating leopard seals- the Antarctic penguins and seals are opportunistic feeders with krill, cephalopods and fish making up varying portions of their diet that CHANGES IN TIME AND PLACE.
The Antarctic ecosystem as with all ecosystems is complex and dynamic. THINGS CHANGE. As an example the amount of silverfish in Adelaide penguin diet for the Ross Sea populations appears to have been increasing over the last 600 years. However, the proportion of silverfish in the diet of the Adelaides at Cape Crozier have been declining over the same period of time. http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FANS%2FANS14_04%2FS0954102002000184a.pdf&code=177885c1ae4c0a90b1a15cd526574854
Commercial fishing activities especially related to the silverfish predator the tooth fish (Chilean sea bass), whale populations, climate, ocean currents and things we have not yet understood or thought of- all complicate ice fish population projections. The largest recent threat to ice fish in the region has been eliminated with the ban on commercial fishing by CCAMLR.
Seals and penguins are opportunistic feeders -dining on krill and cephalopods as well as fish. It can be argued that the krill and cephalopods are a more important Arctic food source. These predators adapt to changes in the forage base. They also compete—and the predator-prey dynamics involving whales, penguins, krill and silverfish may be more important than climate in explaining the foraging dynamics-http://www.penguinscience.com/reprints/Whales_penguins_2006.pdf This linked paper is a good one to get a feel for the complexity of the interplay of the Antarctic’s ice, zooplankton, krill, fish, penguins and whales.
Boys and girls – get real!! That fish “ain’t gonna” make it as I’ve gobbled it up – fried with a bit of parsley and dill. – T’was nice deep fried in batter too.
.Now all we need is a different “thought experiment” devoid of reality, and we will get to the truth. — Fish fu–, no, no — do something unmentionable in the water, the water that you drink. — That’s why you exist!! — Just because fish found a cosy way to keep warm.
Let me get this straight – this is another study to say that CAGW (aka climate change) is gonna cause some extinctions in the world?? And this is abnormal? I mean, have there been NO life form extinctions due to ‘climate change’ over the past 4.6 billion years? If not, then surely, this would indeed (along with all the other alarmist ‘dying’ stuff) be unique – though I suspect two main things:
1) such events, and great dyings have happened before (I am being sarcastic!)
2) any future such events, even if due to climate change, are not necessarily to be laid at the door of mankind, and may well have been going to occur anyway – (obviously if AGw is actually of a spectacularly ‘smaller’ scale as may well be the case!)
Yet another alarmist based presentation, placed well and truly in the ‘forget and burn’ bin as far as I’m concerned!
Phew! I thought there was some kind of mechanism (barring asteroid strikes and the like).
DesertYote says:
“100 species??? Thats a lie. Their are only 50 species in 8 genera in Nototheniidae. I don’t have time to research, but I would put money down that the only reason that the count is so high is because of splitters”
Think of these fish the way you would cichlids. Countless cichlid species swim Lake Malawi -with the vast majority being less than 15,000 years old (last time the lake nearly dried up). It is the power of polyploidy, unique niches, and the resultant rapid speciation. So rapid was the radiation and so closely linked are the genetics- that species begins to lose it conventional meaning.
The lines between species are drawn by humans hands not nature.
A physicist says:
“No more ice No more ‘brinicles’ no more notothenioids.”
The notothenioids living in TEMPERATE New Zealand waters didn’t get the memo.
A physicist says:
February 14, 2012 at 1:22 pm
(wonderful) BBC Planet Earth series
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Only an idiot would reference this piece of blatant propaganda. I think by now, most people who’s brains still work, realize almost everything in it is a deliberate lie.
Pat Moffitt
February 14, 2012 at 4:34 pm
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At lunch I did a little reading … pretty interesting group of fish … I wonder if given a bit a time, some more generalized forms might appear that could displace their more specialized brethren, reducing the number of species.
DesertYote says:
“At lunch I did a little reading … pretty interesting group of fish…”
Yes they are and sadly it seems to research them we need to package their study with climate change. With time I would think you would see more speciation not less -as long as they continue to command the niche. The antarctic silverfish however is a pretty generalized form for cold water areas and in some areas comprises over 90% of the fish species and biomass.
The fish exception to the rule of increased speciation is the bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix – the only specie of the family Pomatomidae. They are found in oceans around the world and in most climates. I’m not sure there are anything like them in being abundant and nearly omnipresent AND the sole extant representative of a family. If you have ever watched them cut through a school of bait fish– they are close to a perfect predator- and perhaps why there was no “need” of further refinement (speciation). They are however strangely absent from the west coast of North America- something the salmon should be continuously thankful for.
The cinematography is amazing. Watch it with the sound off, you’ll be glad you did.
Is it the purpose of mankind to stop all life evolving? It does seem that the aim is to prevent any extinction at any cost. To maintain the world as it is today, forever!
If the following chart is correct then we are nearly at one of the coldest periods in Earth’s history. This suggests these fish ought to be good for another 20 million years. If not, so be it – something else will take their place. That’s life!
http://omniclimate.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/28392301.jpg
“Arctic and Antarctic instrument errors produce warming bias” http://www.bing.com/search?q=antarctic+instrument+siting&form=OSDSRC and “Frigid Folly: UHI, siting issues, and adjustments in Antarctic GHCN data” http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/13/frigid-folly-uhi-siting-issues-and-adjustments-in-antarctic-ghcn-data/ both indicate a heat island effect in Antarctica.