From the UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ROSENSTIEL SCHOOL OF MARINE & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE and the department of “let’s put some fish in a tank and gas them” comes this sub-par science fair level experiment where the only purpose seems to be to demonize CO2 by grabbng a headline. In essence, they’ve created “Dory” from the children’s movie Finding Nemo in an artificial environment that in no way is anything like conditions on a coral reef. Plus, by just dropping the fish into this elevated CO2 environment they aren’t used to, not only are they negating generations of fish and any adaptation that might occur, they are testing fish in a stressed environment that they have no experience with. This truly is bad science.
Study Links Altered Brain Chemistry, Behavioral Impairments in Fish Exposed to Elevated CO2
Research team studied damselfish behavior and physiology under ocean acidification conditions predicted for year 2300
MIAMI–In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University showed that increased carbon dioxide concentrations alters brain chemistry that may lead to neurological impairment in some fish.
Understanding the impacts of increased carbon dioxide levels in the ocean, which causes the ocean to become more acidic, allows scientists to better predict how fish will be impacted by future ocean acidification conditions.
“Coral reef fish, which play a vital role in coral reef ecosystems, are already under threat from multiple human and natural stressors,” said lead author of the study Rachael Heuer, a UM Rosenstiel School alumna which conducted the study as part of her Ph.D. work. “By specifically understanding how brain and blood chemistry are linked to behavioral disruptions during CO2 exposure, we can better understand not only ‘what’ may happen during future ocean acidification scenarios, but ‘why’ it happens.”
In this study, the researchers designed and conducted a novel experiment to directly measure behavioral impairment and brain chemistry of the Spiny damselfish, (Acanthochromis polyacanthus) a fish commonly found on coral reefs in the western Pacific Ocean.
During a three-week period, the scientists collected spiny damselfish from reefs off Lizard Island located on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The fish were separated into two groups–those exposed to ordinary CO2 “control” conditions and those exposed to elevated CO2 levels that are predicted to occur in the near future, but have already been observed in many coastal and upwelling areas throughout the world. Following the exposure, the fish were subjected to a behavioral test, and brain and blood chemistry were measured.
The unique behavioral test, employed a two-choice flume system, where fish were given the choice between control seawater or water containing a chemical alarm cue, which they typically avoid since it represents the smell associated with an injured fish of its own species.
The researchers found that the damselfish exposed to elevated carbon dioxide levels were spending significantly more time near the chemical alarm cue than the control fish, a behavior that would be considered abnormal. The measurements of brain and blood chemistry provided further evidence that elevated CO2 caused the altered behavior of the fish.
“For the first time, physiological measurements showing altered chemistry in brain and blood have been directly linked to altered behavior in a coral reef fish,” said UM Rosenstiel School Maytag Professor of Ichthyology and lead of the RECOVER Project Martin Grosell, the senior author of the study. “Our findings support the idea that fish effectively prevent acidification of internal body fluids and tissues, but that these adjustments lead to downstream effects including impairment of neurological function.”
“If coral reef fish do not acclimate or adapt as oceans continue to acidify, many will likely experience impaired behavior that could ultimately lead to increased predation risk and to negative impacts on population structure and ecosystem function,” said Heuer, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Texas. “This research supports the growing number of studies indicating that carbon dioxide can drastically alter fish behavior, with the added benefit of providing accurate measurements to support existing hypotheses on why these impairments are occurring.”
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The study, titled “Altered brain ion gradients following compensation for elevated CO2 are linked to behavioural alternations in a coral reef fish,” was published in the Sept. 13 online issue of the journal Scientific Reports. The study’s co-authors include: Rachael Heuer; Martin Grosell; Megan J. Welch and Jodie L. Rummer and Philip L. Munday from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
Do you know what else suffers brain damage from high CO2 levels?
Obsessing about it high levels of CO2 certainly leads to significantly impaired judgement, but this is more a case of psychological damage and not physiological damage.
No just human brain damage. This is not even a good animal / fish model for the behavioral and neurochemical effects of stressor hormones. The behavioral components of this study are actually laughable. but I am not done reading this yet. I am a behavioral pharmacologist and I am going to actually write up a review of this. I am trying to be objective so…, later.
Obsessing about it high levels of CO2 certainly leads to significantly impaired judgement, but this is more a case of psychological damage….
Can’t adapt to use of new Blackberry and wants old one back, unable to learn how to send E-mails on desk top computer, doesn’t recognize classified on E-mails (“C” just stands for paragraph sequence), thinks “wiping a computer drive” means cleaning it by cloth, routinely conducts state dept. business with classified headers removed, often confused & faints a lot, strenuously supports lowering CO2 levels …I think you have identified Hilliary’s problem…
Climate researchers
The oceans are becoming more Basic or more neutral or. The ph has largely remained unchanged
But to say more acidic means this study has nothing to do with science .
This deserves the Obama-Nobel Award.
…in the category of “Whatever”
Ok. Now lets see the actual data, and how much cherry-picking was going on. Or, better, lets see a replication…preferably in real-world conditions…
The study would have had a much greater impact if they had instead determined that increasing CO2 levels leads to a preference towards cannibalism.
Will perform edgier climate science for $$$.
Call me.
That’s because no has ever before had the audacity to do this and brazenly proclaim it as science.
For a follow-up first-of-its-kind study, I suggest they take several black sea-bass and put them in the middle of the Mojave desert. My hypothesis is that a decline in brain function will be the result.
No no no! Let’s study the effect of chlorox on guppies! Bwahahaha!
Igor, get the chlorox…
lmao…!
Heuer, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Texas. “This research supports the growing number of studies indicating that carbon dioxide can drastically alter fish behavior, with the added benefit of providing accurate measurements to support existing hypotheses on why these impairments are occurring.
Kinda makes me wonder how many studies are we doing on carbon dioxide and altered fish behavior?
Also, who’s footing the bill for this growing number of studies of this important research topic on altered fish behavior?
Fish are stupid anyway.
“Ooh, look! A castle!”
[30 seconds later…]
“Ooh, look! A castle!”
2300? What ever happened to 2100? Ridiculous.
By that time their great-great grandchildren should be dead and so not embarrassed so much.
Beat me to it. Given the proven skill of climate models on even the decade scale, claiming to usefully model the ocean environment 280+ years out is the very definition of overreach.
2300?
I noticed same. We’re to believe that the coral reefs are dying en masse RIGHT NOW! but apparently we can study the stupidity of the fish that will live on the coral reefs nearly 300 years from now. Hypocrisy, thy name is climate science.
It makes one think they first tried 2100, no problem, then moved to 2200, still no problem, and finally 2300 where they found some changes that could have been caused by many things.
I wonder how much CO2 they assumed was going to be present at that time? Given most reasonable folks would assume we’ve been off fossil fuels for more than a century, the real levels will likely be falling fast by that time.
RM, if they followed the 2010 PIK (Potsdam, home of warmunist Schellnhuber) paper on ‘extended concentration pathways’, then for 2300 under RCP8.5 2000ppm CO2. Ridiculous.
But the researchers assured me that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years. How could it be falling in a mere 300? /sarc
The only way they could get away with jacking up CO2 levels enough to maybe torture the fish (that actual purpose) was to go with 2300. Obviously they knew very little about fish to start with or they’d have gone strait to carbonic acid.
“If coral reef fish do not acclimate or adapt as oceans continue to acidify, many will likely experience impaired behavior that could ultimately lead to increased predation risk and to negative impacts on population structure and ecosystem function,”
So if they do adapt over the next 280 years, it’s okay and they studied nothing.
Is it only the prey fish that get stupid or will the predator fish also get equally stupid and there will be no change.
Lastly on torture, “water containing a chemical alarm cue, which they typically avoid since it represents the smell associated with an injured fish”
Were they torturing and injuring little fishies to generate this smell?
Where are the aquarium owners’ comments?
Anyone who has run a reasonable aquarium quickly learns that dropping new fish straight into the tank is a bad idea.
Fish must acclimate to chemistry, ph and temperature. Sudden surprises of different temperatures, PH or water chemistry will kill many fish. Especially those beautiful, highly colored expensive kinds of fish are most susceptible.
Any loon that drops fish into wildly different water flows really should try a similar practice on themselves; e.g. simulating Mars, Venus or Titan environments, or recreating Apollo 13’s air quality problems.
Let us see if they bite on this.
This study falls into the category of: “let’s measure how effectively we are ‘dumbing down’ the U.S. Public School students.:
And Kiddies these stupid fish are all your fault! Tell you daddies to abandon that range rover and hitch up a team of horses
Wrong. By the twenty second century CO2 and GMO crop runoff is going to create the Uber Pesce, a race of mutated superfish, if you will. By 2300 all of humanity will be relegated to toiling in the seaweed mines for our Pescian overlords. I’ve seen the computer graphs made by a real scientist. All hail Chancellor Nemo!
Just add it to Medicaid coverage now, out of an abundance of caution.
How many film remakes of Nemo will that be in 2300?
It will be all Nemo remakes all the time.
Nemo’s great^15 grandson and his army of 100,000,000 goldfish manage to seize control of all nuclear submarines and threaten to sink every shipping vessel on the ocean unless humans stop eating fish.
Is there a competition for Pseudo-scientist of the Year?
Too many candidates. Even the super-computer couldn’t handle it.
Just create a model.
Gus! Guy! Guys!
WE DO NOT HAND OUT MEDALS TO WINNERS – we hand out “participation medals” to everybody.
You get a grant. And you get a grant. And you… you appear to have brain damage from breathing too close to your carbonated beverage, but you get a grant, too.
Oh well what a surprise. You changed an animals behavior when you stuck it into an environment it’s not accustom to, and further changed its behaviors when you stuck your little instruments in compared to the “control” group. Nothing to see here. Move along. Just another scientist thinking they are objective and thinking they aren’t part of the world that they are affecting. But seriously, this is like 3rd grade science fair bad……….
These people have science degrees.
So does putting the little guy in a tank with no CO2 make him smarter?
Is the CO2 or the acidity that caused the difference in behavior? It appears they have deliberately conflated the two, just to give the maximum amount of alarm.
“elevated CO2 levels that … have already been observed in many coastal and upwelling areas throughout the world”?
How can CO2 in the *atmosphere* affect CO2 levels in *upwelling* waters?
This would suggest to me that the CO2 is being added to the waters at depth simultaneously with the heat that expands the water, making if buoyant enough for upwelling.
Like maybe at a volcanic vent or a mid-oceanic spreading center?
Can you say ‘marine vulcanism’?
One more point for the marine vulcanism hypothesis for ‘bleaching’ of the GBR.
So don’t dump seltzer in your salt water aquariums.
Must be part of the new, universal laws, discovered shortly after the United Nations created the IPCC.
“Increasing carbon dioxide only causes bad things to happen”
Here is a list of the unspoken/unwritten guidelines.
1. Slight global warming, previously assumed to be a good thing…….is actually bad now.
2. CO2, previously understood to be a beneficial gas is now pollution.
3. Previous warm periods(Medieval, Roman) are no longer part of history. People in those times were delusional, just like “deniers” today. They imagined the warmth. Written human accounts and geological history for those warm periods are not to be trusted because they contradict the infallible source……Michael Mann’s tree rings.
3. CO2 harms good creatures……..polar bears, humans(fish in this study) butterfly’s, bees….etc.
4. There is some life that actually will benefit from increasing CO2, but it must be a pest in order to qualify. Examples:are mosquito’s, ticks, fleas, weeds, bacteria, rats….etc.
5. If benefits are found for good life, like plants and crops from CO2 fertilization, there must be an equivalent amount of harm found from future climate adversity caused by increasing CO2 in order to at least offset the benefits.
6. The ideal global temperature and CO2 level in the atmosphere are defined as what was measured at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution……..when humans started emitting CO2 pollution and changing the weather/climate.
7. All climate change since then, has been caused by humans. Natural climate change only happens when it cools observations to less than what the models predicted.
8. All extreme weather events can either be linked to human caused climate change or human caused climate change makes events like that more likely.
9. Funding for research and studies will be based on science and scientists who conform to the guidelines above.
Perhaps politicians and government bureaucrats are already covered in the ticks and fleas category?
Funny if it was not so serious.
Off and on since about late 1980s I have followed the literature about the metal lead Pb and its compounds affecting babies and children, allegedly causing loss of IQ (brain damage).
At first, known effects of lead were all from ingestion of comparatively large quantities. Like children eating putty painted with lead paint. Severe effects on the brain, but of a certain type. Fom there, the narrative progressed until minute traces of lead were causing brain damage, no name for it like encephelopathy, just a vague and fuzzy loss of IQ, hard to detect and describe and quantify.
I engaged a noted medical doctor consultant with decades of experience in world leading work in occupational safety and lead toxicity in particular. He and his colleagues noted that the reverse hypothesis had never been treated enough to reject it. It was that children born with lower IQ were more prone to eating leaded materials, hence pica for lead, but again specific brain effects and high levels.
Then The Establishment picked up lead poisoning as a cause. Children, the public was assured, were every day suffering brain damage from minute amounts of lead. Any professional who doubted this was a denial scientist to be mocked. You know the script.
Unfortunately, the reverse hypothesis has not been rejected AFAIK.
Leaded petrol got banned. Fuel costs went up. Engines wore out faster. The cost was huge, the cost to demonize lead.
Strange, but I cannot recall a recent study that does cost:benefit of demonising lead versus the saving of those millions of lowered IQs. Maybe that is because no study has been done for IQ.
The objective was not to save IQ. It was to gain control of income, prestige, funding, awards and fuzzy feelings of doing personal public good. What is not to like?
It now looks like we have a remake of the fictional best seller of lead and brain damage.
This time it is CO2 and brain damage as “shown” in fish.
In both cases, Establishment science has been ruthless and profitable.
Pity it is likely to be wrong.
What will be demonized in the next remake of Establishment Science, the Sci Fi movie?
Already we gave had man-made chemicals and cancer, radioactivity and mortality, chlorine and greens, tight underpants and cancer, shiny apple coatings and cancer, sugar and obesity, margarine versus butter, one type of food fat versus another, depleted uranium and death by long distant fright, aluminium saucepans and cancer, GMO and any harm that comes to mind, snake oil of indefinite type and dozens of others.
The common factor is that a few folk got very rich at public expense and most were shown to be wrong.
If there is a God, the package comes with a strange sense of humour.
No brain damage in the fish, it’s the other guys… Nutters.
A while back I read about someone who taught his goldfish to swim through a circular loop made of wire. The goldfish did it on command, every time. And people think goldfish are stupid. They’re not, obviously. They’re really pretty smart.
And this study indicates that the authors are every bit as smart as a goldfish.
After reading their study, I’m sure of it.
Definitely a misnamed article
Should read
Study Links Altered Brain Chemistry, Behavioral Impairments in Fish From Sudden Exposure to Elevated CO2
The Damselfish reach sexual maturity in 2 years after hatching so the life cycle repeats every 2 years. At 2 years per generation, the Damselfish alive in 2300 (185 years from now) will be the 93rd generation from the current evolution of the species. That would be like placing a Human of today into the environment of 4325 and expecting him to be able to function without requiring or expecting any form of adaptation.
just to note; 2300 is 284 years from now….. unless you are writing from the future! 🙂
Cheers,
Joe
it’s 2115 and the world is in fine shape…SOOOOO much green all around. Practically an entire biosphere rain forest.
fat fingers on a compressed keyboard and my proof reader is out enjoying the fabulous weather/climate
“containing a chemical alarm cue, which they typically avoid since it represents the smell associated with an injured fish of its own species.”
I’m going to release my own paper: “More CO2 Yields Fish Higher Brain Function Favoring Altruistic Behavior.”
Exactly! Why are they saying it’s a bad thing?
Maybe CO2 increases their brain power increasing their curiosity to find out what caused the demise of some other fish so that they can then avoid that threat? Just look how CO2 causes us to want to slow down and get a good look at a bad car crash!
and now I have a new way to go fishing …
Throw some dry ice in the water, start yelling “Help Me” and they’ll jump right into the boat!
Extra CO2 turns people and animals into SJWs. Look around you. The fish will start a movement called ‘Black Fish Matter’.
Without having read the study there are already many questions. How do they know ocean chemistry for 284 years from now? Are they relying on the “highly accurate” climate models? How did they duplicate normal ocean chemistry with it’s tremendous buffering capacity? How do they know what happens to a fish after this sudden emersion in a very unnatural and altered environment is the same thing that will happen after nearly 300 years of gradual chemical drift?
As an undergraduate many years ago I was induced to do experiments on sucker fish in Alberta to determine their physiological response to acid rain. It involved anaesthetizing captive fish, sewing a rubber membrane around their mouth and then using that membrane to enclose them in a plexiglas tube so as to separate their intake water from expelled water so that I could measure gas exchange at the gills. Watery chemistry was necessarily artificial and was manipulated by bubbling in CO2 to lower the pH.
Naturally this very clever experiment was highly informative of what happens to a normal sucker in an Alberta lake or slough going about it’s normal activities in water that is trivially affected by very mild acidity (which is normal) from precipitation. The fact the experimental fish had been artificially confined, exposed to an anaesthetic, surgically assaulted and confined in a narrow tube from which it would usually struggle free after a brief interval once the anaesthetic wore off can’t possibly have affected the outcome.
I want to reassure readers that I never contributed to the corruption of science by publishing any of this nonsense. My opologies to the fish.
I can certainly understand your remorse about participating in that experiment Andrew. If it’s any consolation, my grandfather used to send me out to the local irrigation wasteway on our farm in N. Washington with a WWII M1 carbine to shoot carp. I’d aul them back and my grandmother buried them in her garden. They made great fertilizer.
It was a full-auto submachine gun too, which was amazing amounts of fun when I was 12. Nowadays I’d probably get 30 years in a federal prison.
“Apologies” to the fish
Plume studies can be very useful, extrapolations to the environment dangerous as the discipline of toxicology discovered long, long, long ago. Always curious as to the time of day, a very high percentage of studies have no night data when pH is lower. My impression has been that the Aussies have been more aware of the importance of night studies, but maybe not.
Perhaps more importantly, the 100K+ or whatever of papers that relate their main importance to rising temperatures, need better guidance about caution. Other demons often used for other places. Proper science would also look at the effects of lower temperatures, especially since it has not been that long ago when they exerted selection pressures.
Someone going against the flow might find their work more useful someday. If it is good science.
Must be part of the new, universal laws, discovered shortly after the United Nations created the IPCC.
“Increasing carbon dioxide only causes bad things to happen”
Here is a list of the unspoken/unwritten guidelines.
1. Slight global warming, previously assumed to be a good thing…….is actually bad now.
2. CO2, previously understood to be a beneficial gas is now pollution.
3. Previous warm periods(Medieval, Roman) are no longer part of history. People in those times were delusional, just like “deniers” today. They imagined the warmth. Written human accounts and geological history for those warm periods are not to be trusted because they contradict the infallible source……Michael Mann’s tree rings.
3. CO2 harms good creatures……..polar bears, humans(fish in this study) butterfly’s, bees….etc.
4. There is some life that actually will benefit from increasing CO2, but it must be a pest in order to qualify. Examples:are mosquito’s, ticks, fleas, weeds, bacteria, rats….etc.
5. If benefits are found for good life, like plants and crops from CO2 fertilization, there must be an equivalent amount of harm found from future climate adversity caused by increasing CO2 in order to at least offset the benefits.
6. The ideal global temperature and CO2 level in the atmosphere are defined as what was measured at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution……..when humans started emitting CO2 pollution and changing the weather/climate.
7. All climate change since then, has been caused by humans. Natural climate change only happens when it cools observations to less than what the models predicted.
8. All extreme weather events can either be linked to human caused climate change or human caused climate change makes events like that more likely.
9. Funding for research and studies will be based on science and scientists who conform to the guidelines above.
This comment is a duplicate of the one sent previously. After checking back an hour later, I figured the first one got lost in the alternate universe of climate science and resent it (-:
Please remove this one.
at least you saved it – my best stuff is just gone to the bit bucket …