Daley, J. (2018, August 08). Ocean Acidification Is Frying Fish’s Sense of Smell. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ocean-acidification-frying-fishs-sense-smell-180969944/
The ocean captures about one fourth of all the CO2 released by humans which, while effective at slowing the effects of climate change, has major repercussions for the ocean ecosystems. Over the past 200 years, CO2 emissions caused by humanity has raised ocean acidity by 43%, and estimates say the ocean will be 2.5 times as acidic as it is now in 2100. This raise in acidity, while relatively weak, is strong enough to disrupt the formation of shells in many marine species, and an international research team published a study that analyzed the effects of acidification on fish. It revealed that the fish swam less and were much more likely to suddenly freeze for five or more seconds, which is a sign of fishy anxiety. More importantly, to smell something the fish had to get much closer to the source, which lowered response and detection time of potential threats. The adaptations to this would usually be to develop more smell receptors, but the fish did the opposite.
This article explains how as we’ve let out more CO2 emissions, we’ve also raised ocean acidity. This acidity affects the fish in the water in such dramatic ways that many species will be left helpless to predators, unbalancing ecosystems when one part of the food chain is killed off. In the case of kelp forests especially, if all the fish disappeared, then sea urchin growth would go out of hand, and the kelp plants that filter out CO2 twenty times as efficiently per acre than other land-based forests would be eaten out of existence. I think it’s important to at least try to preserve our ocean life, because if one ecosystem falls, then more are sure to follow – including ours, – and since life on land largely depends on life in the ocean for CO2 filtering, food and other resources (and to fend off angry conservationists), It would be in our great interest to lower CO2 emissions.
Definitely, definitely. Our household perhaps eats more fish than any other land animal. We sometimes even go fishing in San Francisco; I remember when I was young, we used to go fishing and picking berries near a hidden lake in Idaho. If fishes are defenseless against other predators, where in the world would fish population decline the most?
This pretty freaky, are the fish like Voldemort now? It is kind of weird how the fish have done the opposite of what has thought to happen, why would their noses shrink instead of adapting with smell receptors?
I like how you shed light on the fact that one animal going extinct can affect the whole ecosystem, which I felt goes to show, how big of an impact acidity in the ocean can have on aquatic animals.