Friday, 14 August 2020

Coming to a Marine Food Web Near You?

 


Researchers at the University of Adelaide (Australia) have done an interesting study, involving a number of very large tanks of seawater that were populated by the plants and animals found locally to them (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/13/marine-food-webs-could-be-radically-altered-by-heating-of-oceans-scientists-warn). Some tanks were maintained as controls, whereas other were subjected to increases in temperature and carbon dioxide levels that broadly equated with the values that will be reached if nothing is done to curtail climate change. They found that the experimental changes had profound effects on the marine food webs in those tanks. In essence, algae did very well but many of the species (fish, crustaceans and clams) on which people depend were decimated. I appreciate that even large tanks are on a micro scale but the basic finding looks to be both predictable and robust.

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