Small marine creatures signal climate change

According to scientists at a press conference on February 23 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the advancement of science in Boston, because seawater is warming and acidity is becoming more and more concentrated, Sea creatures are going through a very stressful period, and the entire food web is in danger.

Gretchen Hofmann, a biology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, recently returned after completing a study in Antarctica, she collected a number of pteropods - the size of the sea slug, lentils, grandma. Call it ' fried potatoes ' of the ocean because they are the food of many species. Fish eat pteropod and then make bait for other animals, such as penguins. Because these tiny creatures are suffering from seawater with a higher concentration of acid, it is due to the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Therefore, it is more difficult for them to face the situation of sea water warming up.

'These creatures are not charismatic but mean to us no different from penguins or polar bears,' Hofmann said, 'They are signals for changes. It is possible that by 2050 they will not be able to create tomorrow for me. If we lose these organisms, impacting the food chain will be disastrous. '

Microscopic image of a pteropod (sea slug) - (Photo: D.Forcucci)

Hofmann is an ecologist, who studies how genes work and pause when some marine organisms can produce apricot layers with calcium carbonate from the sea they live in. She described this trip to Antarctica as an urgent research task.

She has conducted a large-scale study of sea urchins living in kelp forests in California. Sea urchins are a vital part of the food web and play a major economic role for California fishermen because sea urchin eggs are a precious sushi called ' uni '.

Hofmann explains, in order to face rising sea acid levels, the larvae of invertebrate marine animals have to adjust their metabolism to still produce apricot. But to do this also has to pay a price. The change in physiological characteristics dealing with acidity makes it more difficult for organisms to tolerate the warming of seawater, and they will become smaller.

'Observations show that' double risk '- warming and higher concentration of acid - will form a complex environment for future marine life,' she commented.

Hofmann is investigating the level of carbon dioxide that will have the effect that the climate change multinational panel (IPCC) predicts will happen if people continue to call the ' regular business plan '. has been on the project until 2100.

The National Science Foundation office of the polar research program funded the costs of this study.