Environment Forum

Crustaceans rule!

Ever wondered what kinds of wildlife dominate the world’s seas and oceans? Now there’s an answer, at least in terms of the number of species in different categories. It’s not fish. It’s not mammals. It’s crustaceans!

A mammoth Census of Marine Life has revealed that nearly one-fifth, or 19 percent, of all the marine species known to humans are crustaceans — crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill, barnacles and others far too numerous to mention here. The census didn’t count the actual numbers of animals beneath the waves — that would have been impossible — but it did count up the number of species in 25 marine areas. The aim is to set down a biodiversity baseline for future use.

It took 360 scientists to figure this out. Their findings were posted on Monday in PLoS ONE, an open-source peer-reviewed online scientific journal. An even more fulsome list will be out in October.

For now, there’s plenty of data to chew on: of the 25 marine areas around the world that were examined, Australian and Japanese waters were the most biodiverse, with nearly 33,000 species in each of these locations. The oceans off China, the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico round out the top five most biodiverse marine regions.

After crustaceans, mollusks (like squid, octopus, clams, snails and slugs) rank second in terms of the number of species found in these regions, with 17 percent. Fish, including sharks, make up 12 percent of species. After that, it’s one-celled micro-organisms at 10 percent; algae and other plant-like organisms at 10 percent; segmented worms at 7 percent; sea anemones, corals and jellyfish, 5 percent; flatworms, 3 percent; starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars and sea cucumbers, 3 percent; sponges, 3 percent; mat or “moss animals,” 2 percent; sea squirts, 1 percent.

The rest are lumped together as “other vertibrates” — including whales, sea lions, seals sea birds, turtles and walruses — at 5 percent, and “other invertibrates” at 2 percent. So some of the best-known of marine creatures make up only a tiny part of the seas’ biodiversity.

The Mediterranean has the most invasive species, creatures that aren’t native, most of which arrived through the Suez Canal from the Red Sea. Most “cosmopolitan” of species — those that appear in more than one marine region — are microscopic plants and animals at the tiny end, and seabirds and marine mammals at the large end of the scale.

Voyage around the Americas sees acidification off Alaska

Scientists aboard the Ocean Watch, a 64-foot yacht on a year-long voyage circling the Americas, are testing the waters as they go. Instruments on the vessel have picked up evidence of ocean acidification, another result of the spewing of carbon dioxide from tailpipes and smokestacks, they say.   Much of  CO2 pollution ends up in the atmosphere, but some is absorbed in the ocean, where it is converted into carbonic acid. The average pH of the word’s oceans is about 8.1 and the lower the reading, the greater the acidity.    Scientists are concerned that if pH levels keep falling ocean waters could eat away the shells of organisms large and small. That would put the web of ocean life at risk, not to mention be a potential disaster for land-loving seafood lovers     Ocean Watch has picked up readings of 7.88 in the Gulf of Alaska. Michael Reynolds, the scientist taking the measurements, said the preliminary data may show that the Gulf of Alaska is a primary “sink” for atmospheric carbon.   The good news is that readings have returned to normal as the voyage continues off the coast of South America.    

The Ocean Watch has taken other environmental observations, on things like declining ice cover in the Arctic, and it sailed through the Northwest Passage, one of only 100 ships to do so in the last 100 years. A special camera is observing the gaggles of jellyfish the ship encounters. The creatures are among the world’s hardiest, so the scientists want to see what kind of jellyfish are thriving in waters that are acidic or are polluted in other ways and what changes they are undergoing.   “The boat is acting as a spotlight on issues known to scientists and local fisherman, but are not known to the general public,” said David Rockefeller, a philanthropist who is sponsoring the $2 million voyage for Sailors for the Sea. He will climb aboard Ocean Watch later this month off the coast of Patagonia.   The sailors are sharing their observations and concerns with the public at ports along their journey.     Ellen Lettvin, an education expert at the Pacific Science Center, said the Ocean Watch scientists will analyze the data at the end of the voyage and provide it to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other organizations tracking the health of the oceans.

Photo:  David Thoreson

Coral erodes off Taiwan as divers take it home

Taiwan tourists are destroying a piece of exactly what they travel to see on an outlying mid-Pacific islet known — at least at one time — for its abundant coral reefs.

A pair of Taiwan environmental groups that marshaled 56 people to check the coral supply near Orchid Island, which is southeast of Taiwan proper, for the first time since 2004 found that the sensitive but colourful marine species covered only 18 percent of the surrounding ocean floor, down from 65 percent, said the Taiwan Environmental Information Center .

The Taipei-based information centre and its research partner the Taiwan Association for Marine Environmental Education suspect that the aftermath of a long-lasting August typhoon may have caused parts of the reef to break apart.

But they’re more concerned about a long-term influx of overeager Taiwan tourists who visit the sparsely populated island for diving or snorkeling in its azure waters.  Humans are taking too much coral or other aquatic life out of the water, hurting the ecosystem, said information centre special projects manager Kung Lu.

“Tourists have been taking too much out of the ocean,” Kung said. “Some of them just don’t know.”

Green Island, a neighbouring islet off the same subtropical coast and arguably northeast Asia’s top diving spot, is fighting an epidemic of diseased coral  as tourist traffic surges to nearly 400,000 visits per year . Orchid had gotten off easier because it’s farther from Taiwan’s main island, with fewer flights and hotels.

Coral reefs, delicate undersea structures resembling rocky gardens made by tiny animals called coral polyps, are nurseries as well as shelters for fish and other sea life. It will take 50 to 100 years before Orchid Island’s coral grows back to even 40 percent of the offshore ocean floor, the information centre estimates.

Panic at 2 a.m. — the search for multiyear Arctic ice

    When you’re looking for shrinking packs of multiyear ice in the Arctic Ocean, bizarre things tend to happen. Top Canadian scientist David Barber knows this first hand, as he explained in a presentation in Parliament on Wednesday. Barber said that to all extents and purposes the multiyear ice in the Arctic had already vanished, which could open up the region to shipping and mineral exploitation.

    Barber, who holds Canada’s Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, boarded the icebreaker Amundsen last month and steamed north from the Arctic port of Tuktoyaktuk to look for the Beaufort Sea pack ice, the “thickest, hardest, meanest, multi year sea we have left in the northern hemisphere”.

    According to up-to-date satellite maps provided by the Canadian Ice Service, the Amundsen should have started ploughing into progressively thicker ice almost from the start. Soon after the ship set sail Barber went to bed, and then woke up at 2 am in a panic.

Oceans away! U.S. makes federal stab at ocean policy

The seven seas get a single U.S. approach in a draft federal plan for oceans released on Thursday (and dated Sept. 10, when it was given to the prez). The report is a response to President Obama’s request for a plan and says a new National Ocean Council should use ecosystem management to take on the task. Previous efforts have been focused on solving individual problems — saving fisheries, stopping water pollution — which did not always match.

“This is the first time they have declared their intention to adopt a new way of managing the oceans, one that puts a priority on the health of the marine ecosystem, from which all the other benefits flow,” said Chris Mann, director of the Pew Charitable Trust’s campaign for healthy oceans.

Goals include addressing changing conditions in the Arctic, reacting to climate change and ocean acidification and land practices that affect water.

But wait — until they come up with details, it might not amount to a hill of beans.

Photo credit: Reuters/ (Fishing boats and other vessels form the words “Acid Ocean”  in Alaska,  September 2009)

Good news for South American penguins

Half a million Magellanic penguins are among the critters to get protection in a new coastal marine park just established by Argentina.

“It is the first protected area in Argentina specifically designed to safeguard not only onshore breeding colonies but also areas of ocean where wildlife feed at sea,” the Bronx-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said on Tuesday.

“Researchers found that the area was in need of protection from increasing pressures by commercial fishing and the oil industry,” said WCS, which helped set up the park. Named the Golfo San Jorge marine park, it became official earlier this month.

Only a fraction of the planet’s coastlines and marine areas are protected, so any move in this area is bound to be welcomed by conservationists.

According to conservation group WWF for example, only 0.6 percent of the world’s oceans have been designated as protected – compared to almost 13 percent of the planet’s land area.

The new reserve is in Golfo San Jorge in Chubut Province, some 1,056 miles (1,700 kilometers) south of Buenos Aires. WCS said it covers approximately 250 square miles (647 square kilometers) of coastal waters and nearby islands strung along almost 100 miles (160 kilometers) of shoreline.

Smoke and mirrors to slow global warming?

With worries about recession in many countries, does it make sense to try out some more radical ideas for fighting global warming, like placing mirrors in the sky to block the sun or fertilising the oceans to soak up greenhouse gases?

They sound like great proposals at first sight: simple,  probably cheaper and in some cases reversible. See a story about the technologies here. But there’s a lot of scepticism among scientists in the U.N. Climate Panel – there could be nasty side effects.

If you spew clouds of tiny particles, such as sulphur, into the upper atmosphere to block out some sunlight, for instance, they will eventually fall to earth and add to smog (think Beijing on bad days before the Olympics). Backers say that volcanoes do the same thing naturally — big eruptions can cool the planet. But who wants to breathe it in every day?

You can also dump iron filings into the seas to spur a bloom of algae which absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then sink to the bottom when they die and cut the amount of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Sounds great, but it might also make the oceans more acidic — shellfish, crabs, lobsters, etc could then find it harder to build shells and so be more vulnerable to predators.

And if you put a giant barrier in space to reflect sunlight it might cause all sorts of havoc with the climate.

Time Magazine once called such “geo-engineering” options the “Hail Mary pass” - a desperate throw that just might win you the match. 

Is it worth the risk?

Good news on the Texas turtle front

There are two turtle tales brewing on the coast of Texas at the moment and they’re both good.

First the numbers tale. 

The dedicated folks at the South Padre Island conservation facility Sea Turtle, Inc, report record numbers of nests by endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles.

“We have had record numbers of ridley nests on the Texas coast this year. We have found over 170 so far in 2008 compared to the previous record of 128 for all of last year,” Sea Turtle, Inc, curator Jeff George told Reuters.

This is the fifth straight year that the numbers have increased.

The species still has a few weeks left to its nesting season in the area, so the recorded 2008 total could reach 200.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

It’s almost creepy watching this video of a colossal squid slowly thawing out in a giant tub at the Museum of New Zealand. If this were a horror movie, after all, it would suddenly start flailing around with its monstrous tentacles.

Researchers say that the squid, weighing 495 kg (1,090 lb) and caught off Antarctica in 2007, will be unfolded for study on Wednesday after it is defrosted. It is expected to be 6-8 metres long.

That could tell scientists more about colossal squid, rare creatures that are the world’s biggest invertebrates. Sometimes someone wanders into the video frame and you get a sense of how enormous the squid is.

So the video above is not just a curiosity that looks like a poorly stocked fish section in a supermarket with a broken freezer full of water.

“This squid is a really nasty agressive sort of squid…a gelatinous blob with seriously evil arms on it,” the New Zealand Press Association quoted Steve O’Shea, a squid expert at the University of Auckland, as saying of a previous colossal squid in 2003.

“Without any doubt if you fell in the water, you could be shredded to bits by a colossal squid. It is the T-Rex of the oceans,” he said.