By Daniel de la Calle
»The Center for Biological Diversity has launched a new Endangered Oceans campaign in the US to save our sea life from the “unprecedented threat” of Ocean Acidification. The website is WWW.ENDANGEREDOCEANS.ORG and they want to call on “the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to produce a national action plan to tackle ocean acidification”. You can sign their petition HERE and you can learn how some species are already being harmed by Ocean Acidification and how others will soon follow suit HERE.
»Australia’s “Foreign Minister Bob Carr has announced the government will provide $1 million to a participation fund to help small island developing states participate in the Rio+20 conference in June.
The conference will include debate on how to sustainably manage the world’s oceans.
“Small island developing states live most directly with the disastrous reality of climate change,” Senator Carr said on Thursday. “Now they are facing an additional threat from ocean acidification.” Senator Carr said it was crucial that the nations with so much at stake should be able to have their voices heard. “Declining ocean water quality is already killing fish, other marine species and marine vegetation,” he said.”
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»North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher video about the effects that carbon dioxide emissions have on sea invertebrates.
»“Researchers at Seattle and Oregon State University have definitively linked an increase in ocean acidification to the collapse of oyster seed production at a commercial oyster hatchery in Oregon, where larval growth had declined to a level considered by the owners to be “non-economically viable.”
A study by the researchers found that elevated seawater carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, resulting in more corrosive ocean water, inhibited the larval oysters from developing their shells and growing at a pace that would make commercial production cost-effective. As atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise, this may serve as the proverbial canary in the coal mine for other ocean acidification impacts on shellfish, the scientists say.”
Results of the research were published in early April in the journal Limnology and Oceanography.
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»NBC News piece on the danger of extinction for 56 coral species from water warming and Ocean Acidification:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
»German scientists Kai T. Lohbeck, Ulf Riebesell and Thorsten B. H. Reusch have published on Nature.com a an article about the “Adaptative evolution of a key phytoplankton species to Ocean Acidification”. The researchers examined the ability of the world’s single most important calcifying organism, the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi, to evolve in response to Ocean Acidification. They say: “Specifically, we exposed E. huxleyi populations founded by single or multiple clones to increased concentrations of CO2. Around 500 asexual generations later we assessed their fitness. Compared with populations kept at ambient CO2 partial pressure, those selected at increased partial pressure exhibited higher growth rates, in both the single- and multiclone experiment, when tested under ocean acidification conditions. Calcification was partly restored: rates were lower under increased CO2 conditions in all cultures, but were up to 50% higher in adapted compared with non-adapted cultures. We suggest that contemporary evolution could help to maintain the functionality of microbial processes at the base of marine food webs in the face of global change.”
Read more about it on the SOURCE page.
