Posted on 07/07/2014 3:21:37 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Fish don't have Facebook to help keep tabs on their schoolmates. Like junior high students before the Internet, they have to hang out for a while to become pals.
But a research team at Australia's James Cook University found that ocean acidification, caused by the fossil fuel burning that drives climate change, could be robbing some tropical fish of their ability to remember friends.
Under normal ocean conditions, juvenile damselfish take about three weeks recognize their other fish in their schools. But under simulated conditions with estimated carbon dioxide levels in the year 2100, damselfish apparently lose that ability to distinguish between schoolmates and strangerslike a collective case of fish Alzheimer's.
Lead investigator Lauren Nadler suggests elevated CO2 levels interfere with fish neuroreceptors, impairing senses such as sight and smell, which they use to recognize others.
"Whatever the cause, losing the ability to find friends spells possible trouble for damselfish, as well as other species more valuable to the international economy," writes John Metcalfe, who reports for The Atlantics CityLab in collaboration with Climate Desk. "The Australian research adds another clue to the mounting pile of evidence that climate change will rock the ocean in ways we are just beginning to understand."
The Weekly delved into the trip of ocean acid back in 2008, looking at the connections between Monterey Harbor and its mirror image in the Southern Hemisphere. The report took the form of a detective story, tracing the evidence of carbon dioxide's oceanic rampage:
The seas weird behavior is a tough nut to crack, but some of the worlds sharpest minds are on the case. Their chief suspect is carbon dioxide, code-named CO2: atmospheric loiterer, weather tweaker, planet heater.
CO2 and his gaseous co-conspirators have already been indicted for stealing ice from polar bears, provoking the Creole villainess Katrina, and sparking record-breaking forest fires across the western U.S.
But outside the media bubble, CO2 may quietly be torturing another victimone thats easy, but foolish, to ignore. Scientists have found carbons fingerprints on the acidifying, depleted and alien-invaded sea. This may be the grisly underbelly of global warming.
CO2 is the chief suspect. Actually CO2 is the only thing they looked at. It’s the only way they can bring in the coin. CO2 causes old age also. Did you know that.
I think Laura has been smoking large quantities of CO2.
I want fish to have more friends, so I will walk everywhere and sell my car. Then I will go to the looney-bin.
This is satire, isn’t it?
The author of this article, Kera Abraham, could not possibly be stupid enough to actually believe this stuff, right?
Do you mean that I wouldn't age if it wasn't for Global Warming?!?!?!? Curse those evil corporations and their Republican minions!!!
Some of my best friends are fish. If two of them get in a spat, I just sit them down and ask them to say three nice things about each other. But then, I realized that they have a brain the size of a BB, and they can’t talk, so I have a shark eat them.
Hey! Who started the OFST on Monday?
Would some other divers chime in here? Personally, I cannot recall ever seeing damselfish schooling. They are territorial and, except for mating season, tend to fight off anything that comes near their nest/eggs. I have seen pairs, but that is the largest number I recall seeing together. The juveniles aren’t schooling, as I understand the word. They are simply related hatchlings that haven’t yet ventured that far from the brood spot.
It’s been a long time since I was diving. If I am wrong, please tell me.
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