One of the major concerns with climate change relates to habitat changes for the plants and animals. Will aspen survive anywhere in the United States? What trees will be able to survive in Connecticut in 2050? 2100? Where will elk be able to survive in 2100?

Of course these aren’t easy predictions to make since each species has distinct environmental requirements. Even more troubling though is that many have complex relationships with other organisms, both beneficial and detrimental. Then there are the often complex food webs that each species is a member. some webs are resilient to loss of several species but others collapse with the loss of only one.

While sea temperatures are generally more stable than air temps in terrestrial systems, many of the marine animals have even tighter requirements for temperature. Even a change in just a few °C can prevent reproduction, reduce lifespans, or even cause death. That is the case with the Icelandic Scallop. In some recent experiments it was found that the scallops had a significantly higher mortality in temperatures above 12°C. Average summer sea surface temperatures off Iceland’s southern coast have been in excess of 10°C in recent years and have been rising. A +2°C change over the previous decades has brought the average summer sea surface temperature very near the scallop’s maximum threshold. While the scallops are still able to survive, there has been a marked increase in adult mortality.

Icelandic Scallop - Image from http://www.osl.gc.ca/guide_sp/en/invert/sp/c-islandica.html

Increasing temperature may not directly be the primary cause of the recent increases in mortality of the scallops, though it has been strongly implicated. In recent years, a protozoan parasite has affected much of the stock of C. islandica around Iceland. As with the scallop itself, many protozoan parasites have been found to have temperature thresholds and ideal temperature ranges. For instance Perkinsus atlanticus populations under controlled experiments did not grow, in temperatures of 5°C, grew slowly at 16°C, and grew quickly at 20°C and 26°C. It also failed to grow and died out after 4 days at an experimental temperature of 37°C. Similarly, two other protozoan parasites of interest on the Atlantic Coast are also temperature controlled: Parkinsus marinus, the cause of the disease dermo in oysters, requires temperatures above 25°C to thrive, Haplosporidium nelsoni, which causes MSX in oysters (although it can survive and multiply at temperatures of 5°C-25°C) requires temperatures above 20°C to infect a new oyster. Temperature is likely also a controlling factor in the spread of the protozoan infecting C. islandica.

While the Iceland Scallop is what instigated this post, the topic of climate change and its effect on marine animals, particularly fish, is one I have been thinking of a lot lately. In much the same way that the scallops are temperature limited, fish have ideal and survivable temperature ranges, and temperature can play a significant role on growth and reproductive success. Complicating the issue is that many of the fish have very specific habitat preferences or needs as well.

Atlantic Wolffish - Photo copyright Peter Auster from http://www.nurc.uconn.edu/bigmouthfishes/photos/SBNMS/content/neg7_large.html

Take for instance the Atlantic Wolffish (Anarhichas lupus) a species of increasing concern in the Gulf of Maine, if fact they are likely to be soon added to the Endangered Species Act. They are a wonderful (dare I say beautiful) fish with some great characteristics and a face only a mother, or a crazy marine biologist, could love! They feed mainly on molluscs, crustaceans and echinoderms using their huge canines. They are a large benthic fish, growing up to 5 feet and weighing up to 40 pounds.

They are also a slow growing and late maturing species. Growth and maturity varies with temperature fluctuations, but generally they are reproductively mature by 6 years or about 16 inches total length. Spawning pairs of male and female form in the spring with actual spawning period varying, possibly as a function of temperature. As with many species, reproductive success increases as females grow larger and older, producing both more eggs and more viable eggs (ranges from 5,000 to 12,000 eggs per season). The female lays her eggs in holes and around boulder reefs. The male then begins a fast, loses his teeth, and guards the eggs for four to nine months of egg incubation (again a function of temperature). Four to nine month fasting and guarding the eggs. Think about that one guys!

wolffish pair from CLF (credit: Jonathan Bird) on Vimeo.

One of the cool things about wolffish is the presence of anti-freeze in their body, which allows them to survive, even thrive, in extremely cold waters. In the wild they have been caught in trawl surveys in waters from -1.9°C to 14°C. In the laboratory they survived temperatures as high as 17°C, but feeding was strongly negatively correlated with the higher temperatures.

So temperature is a major factor on the wolffish, but so is habitat. Wolffish are most often found in rocky reefs or seaweed beds on hard substrate from 80m to 180m depths, but range as deep as 650m and can, on occasion, be found in coastal shallows. My most memorable dive in New England remains being about 3 feet away from a 4 foot wolffish in the cove just off Avery Point in late November.

Young wolffish keep to the deeper, colder part of their range where temperatures remain -1°C to 4°C. Only mature fish are found in shallower ranges and higher temperatures with an upper temperature limit of 10°C.

My thoughts recently have related mainly to mapping the current and potential future ranges of some of these animals using habitat suitability modeling techniques in geographic information systems (GIS), including especially ecological niche factor analysis (ENFA). Using what we know of their habitat requirements (for the wolffish: -1°C-10°C, boulder reefs for spawning, 80m-200m depth, and abundance of lobster, crab, urchin or molluscs) we can map the current optimal and sub-optimal ranges. It doesn’t mean they’ll be there, but it is where the potential for finding them should be highest, based on our understanding of their requirements. By altering the temperature and depth components to match forecasts based on climate change models, we can look ahead to forecast the likely range of the animals, and even the decade by decade march or retreat of suitable habitat.

An example of using mulitple habitat factors with multipliers to determine ecological niche. From http://www2.unil.ch/biomapper/

For some animals the outlook is pretty bleak. The combination of habitat requirements and temperature requirements will drive them completely out of the Gulf of Maine and potentially out of the Western Atlantic entirely. There are many fish that are at their breeding temperature limits in the Gulf of Maine already, including many commercially important species. Some marine animals are existing in virtual islands of suitable habitat formed by complexities of depth, substrate type and complexity, currents and temperature, among many other factors.

The challenge is to identify, for each species or community, which of these factors are most important for both the organism’s survival and our modeling efforts. Unfortunately, especially in the marine realm, there is still so much we don’t know about the ecological requirements of may of the animals and communities. Even mapping the seafloor at resolutions comparable to our maps of terrestrial areas continues to be challenge. It often surprises many people I talk to when they find out that almost all our knowledge of marine animal populations and habitat characteristics comes from commercial fisheries and from sample trawls by the NMFS. Most species that are not targets of fisheries or considered commercially important have not been studied extensively, if at all.

Trawler bringin up it's haul - from http://en.wikivisual.com/images/f/fb/Fish_on_Trawler.jpg

In the marine environment it is very challenging to accurately predict how communities will respond to warming waters and how individual species ranges will change, simply from lack of direct observation. We are getting better at using the important data we do have, and have identified proxies for the data we simply do not have, but we need more time in the water with ROV’s and DSV’s for direct observations, especially of the continental shelf and deep sea ecosystems.

Wolffish eating a sea urchin from CLF (credit: Jonathan Bird) on Vimeo.

References

Burreson, E., & Ford, S. (2004). A review of recent information on the Haplosporidia, with special reference
to Haplosporidium nelsoni (MSX disease) Aquating Living Resources, 17 (4), 499-517 DOI: 10.1051/alr:2004056

Hagen, N., & Mann, K.H. (1992). Functional response of the predators American lobster Homarus americanus (Milne-Edwards) and Atlantic wolffish Anarhichas lupus (L.) to increasing numbers of the green sea urchin Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis (Müller) Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 159 (1), 89-112 DOI: 10.1016/0022-0981(92)90260-H

Jonasson, J., Thorarinsdottir, G., Eiriksson, H., & Marteinsdottir, G. (2004). Temperature tolerance of Iceland scallop, Chlamys islandica (O.F. Muller) under controlled experimental conditions Aquaculture Research, 35 (15), 1405-1414 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2109.2004.01159.x

King, M.J., Kao, M.H., Brown, J.A, & Fletcher, G.L. (1989). Lethal freezing temperatures of fish:
limitations to seapen culture in Atlantic Canada. Proc Ann Aquacult Assoc Can., 89 (3), 47-49

Ordás, M., & Figueras, A. (1998). In vitro culture of Perkinsus atlanticus, a parasite of the carpet shell clam Ruditapes decussatus Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, 33, 129-136 DOI: 10.3354/dao033129

One last awesome video of a wolffish!

Wolffish devouring a crab from CLF (credit: Jonathan Bird) on Vimeo.

For me, today was that day.

Ah, the beauty of Avery Point and the Castle blanketed in a layer of calming white snow. Until the klaxon sounds and sirens wail.

Just to hit the high spots:
Very tired this morning after insomniatic night -> Roads not plowed -> three car pile up on the highway -> highway traffic diverted onto my commute route -> 15 minute commute (+15 for unplowed streets) now takes 57 minutes -> miss Chemistry lecture.

Trying to pack for Ft. Lauderdale trip interupted by two 20 minute fire alarms, both false alarms! Finally got the three crates full of the nav and video systems for the cruise, they are on the way. Hopefully they make it to Ft. Lauderdale and don’t end up in Ft. Leavenworth.

One of three hook and ladder trucks which responds to every Marine Science building alarm. I don’t mean that to imply that there are a lot of alarms.

Laptop died at ~8:40am -> three major projects, all due in next 1-3 weeks on dead laptiop, not to mention three almost complete web site redesigns I figured to complete while on the plane. Fortunately it’s only the video board -> after school Tammy and sick Johann accompany (very tired) me to Genius Bar where they verify, yes it’s the NVidea board. They have replacement mainboard in stock, 3-4 days to replace. Whew! Excellent Indian food from the food court(!!) as celebration.

I managed to get the projects off the laptop before we left for Providence by booting it blind as a firewire harddrive to the iMac. Slow process, but at least I’m safe there. 2 hours sleep in the past 48. This day.. you can have it back (though I’ll keep the vindaloo and nan in the food court, thank you!) Now to sleep perchance to dream, or if not just forget this day.

1234567890 day is the day when the unix system time rolls past 1,234,567,890 seconds since it’s 0 point (the unix epoch) midnight 1 January 1970 zulu time. The time comes at 23:31:30 (UTC) and there are parties in from the East Coast (18:31:30pm EST) to the West Coast (15:31:30 PST) and many places in between, as well as right round the world. I need a teleporter!

If you forgot the time, quick do it now – party like it’s 1234567890!

My co-blogger from the Other95%, Kevin – who is also a member of the Deep Sea Boys who we hope to see make the circuit of Sea Shanty festivals this summer – essentially did just that as he led a session at Science Online ’09 on blogging from the field.

The idea, I believe, was to provide some idea of the level of distraction often present on a ship or field location, a lesson I got a bit of a taste for having “live-blogged” a few posts from the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster.

All I know is I would have loved to have been in the room when Kevin started dancing around with a deep sea angler fish puppet and belting out

Haul away you rolling kings
Heave away, haul away
Haul away youll hear me say
Were bound for South Australia

Please tell me someone got video or audio!!

(for those not familiar with Sea Shanties, Roger McGuinn has the lyrics and an MP3 of the Southe Australia available)

10% cuts came already and now the painful ones are coming… not that the 10% cuts weren’t already painful. Hopefully I can find my way into grad school despite the cuts…

Applications are in to UConn, Rutgers and URI for masters programs. Feelers went to Duke and WHOI but both of those are very long shots since the deadlines for this year have already past and they are Ph.D. only programs.

Outlook -> Apple Mail/Address Book:

1. Install Eudora 6.x/7.x on XP, import files from Outlook (mailboxes, contacts & settings)
2. Find eudora files (generally c:\documents and settings\user\Application Data\Qualcomm\Eudora)
3. Beware issue about attachments and parts
4. Drop Eudora folder onto Eudora Mailbox Cleaner
5. In Mail.app repair all the mailboxes
6. Done.

For the Harmony Remote, set up the DishNetwork box to never turn off from the remote.

Technicians who come anywhere within 10 feet of a network or broadband drop to a house should recognize if their device requires a crossover cable to attach to a home router. Said tech should recognize that a cable is or is not a crossover when they test it with a network cable tester, or read the cable jacket which clearly says: 568A/568B which indicates a crossover.

I had to wonder when Christie at Observations of a Nerd proclaimed that she was actually a man. I mean, I have never met her, but from previous postings etc., I was pretty sure the author of the blog was a female. However it seems her writing is decidedly male, at least according to one analysis.

According to the site GenderAnalyzer.com, which analyzes the gender of the author of a site based on their writings, I also may have an identity issue to deal with on top of GRE’s, Grad school applications, etc…

It seems Eclectic Echoes is decidedly gender neutral. (Technically 53% male).
Larval Images is decidedly male at a ranking of 74% male, and
The Other 95% is comparatively dripping with testosterone at 84% male.

Of course since I blog at TO95% with Kevin, I decided to analyze his other sites as well.
Deep Sea News (with co-bloggers Craig McClain and Peter Etnoyer) scores strongly male, but at 81%
I also tried Kevin’s home page, but according to the analyzer it is not written in English (?!) so it could not complete the analysis.
Unfortunately without a site exclusively authored by Kevin, I don’t think there is a solid way to break out each author’s effects accurately.

Aside from the fact they probably need more training data for increased accuracy, what conclusions can you draw? (While I get back to studying aggregate supply and demand curves and writing a paper on oxygen isotopes and global climate analysis)

He entered a Student Blogger contest that has a $10,000 award and after making the first cut is in a vote-off or the big prize.

(Damn, that would have killed the credit card debt right nicely!)

Seriously, if you all know me and what my family has been doing to make this a reality, you surely know it isn’t easy. Brian is an awesome writer and we need people like him in science and science communications…

Damn, just realized Laelaps isn’t in the science blog links over there —>
must fix.

As for my education… one thing I have learned this week. Bureaucracies are the same wherever you go, and I would still rather be in combat that deal with them – at least in combat you have a fighting chance to survive.

Urinary Tract Wallpaper by Shannon Wright

Hat tip to Miriam at The Oyster’s Garter

While the gents at Deep Sea News get time on some of the best manned and remotely operated vehicles out there, the rest of us don’t have to sit it completely out. I think some time this winter Tammy and Johann and I will build a homebrew ROV to explore some of the local shores. Maybe we can find some of the stomatopods that live in the Mystic estuary for a test cruise.

Mantis Shrimp (Squilla empusa)
Originally uploaded by Littoraria.