Marine Biology

Shrinking ice flow and global warming have deplete the seals and food source in the Arctic. This creates problems of starvation for polar bears. Polar bears are an extremely strong animal and to keep up this strength they have to feed on meat, generally seals. When it is not available they can and will feed on sea gulls and eggs but that is not enough to keep up their strength. Polar bears have increasingly been seen to feed on juvenile polar bears, becoming cannibals.  Seeing this in graphic detail, one will notice the strength and power the polar bear has. The ice depletion and lack of food will effect the polar bear population.  Add to that the cannibalism and the population will deplete even faster.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16081214

Do you think that if humans were put in this situation that they had nothing to eat would become cannibalistic?

What can we do to slow this possibility of extinction?

Do you think that the female would eat the juveniles as well?

Do you think that they would resort to eating their own cubs?

I found this article about this Crazy ancient shrimp called Anomalocaris which is Latin for “Weird Crustacean.” The article states that this so called shrimp that is about three feet long and had eyes about 2-3 centimeters long had an estimate of 30,000 lenses in each eye, which made it have very good vision. Scientists found this fossil of this shrimp on the Kangaroo Islands in Australia. During the Cambrian Period which was 542- 501 million years ago, this weird crustacean was the largest animal at the time. The creatures size and vision made it a super predator.

What do you think that this animal is closely related to?

How fast do you think they swam?

I was looking at this article and I thought it was cool how this African Lungfish was using his fins to walk on the bottom of a fish tank. A team of scientists wanted to study this because this African Lungfish is very closely related to tetrapods (pretty much land animals with four limbs a backbone, including humans, birds, mammals and reptiles). Scientists are hoping to learn about the greater shifts of animal evolution. But these Lung fish are not able to walk on land because they have no sacrum. Which is the supportive bone at the base of the spine and no fingers or toes on their limbs.

What do you think of this new feet for fish?

Do you think that fish will eventually be able to walk on land in the far away future?

So at http://news.discovery.com/animals/robotic-fish-lead-schools-of-fish-from-danger.html there is an interesting article about scientists creating robotic fish. They think that these robotic fish can help fish escape from danger. These robotic fish could lead schools of fish from dangers like predators and any man made problems. The idea is great but how are they going to figure out how the  robot take a leadership role? How could the robot communicate with the fish?

Large jellyfish blooms are appearing around coastal areas around the world. The influx of blooms are not only annoying to tourists and fisherman alike, but they are also affecting the food chain. The jellyfish are eating in large amounts of plankton, but they “chain” stops there, because not many other animals prey on jellies. Fish would otherwise be eating this plankton. The jellies are “restricting the transfer of energy” resulting in lost carbon energy. If this continues, and the jellies keep consumer more zooplankton, phytoplankton, then the fish will not have enough to consume. What causes these blooms: increasing climate change, over fishing, fertilizer runoff and other factors.

“Marine bacteria typically play a key role in recycling carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and other by-products of organic decay back into the food web,” says Virginia Institute of Marine Science graduate, Rob Condon. “But in our study, we found that when bacteria consumed dissolved organic matter from jellyfish they shunted it toward respiration rather than growth.”

Is there any way we can prevent such large blooms?

information source: http://www.macroevolution.net/jellyfish-swarms.html

I read this article about the decline in apex predators such as; sharks, tunas, swordfish, and marlins. Over time fishing has led to a 90-per-cent decrease in top predators since the 1950s. The scientists found that it first started in coastal areas of northern countries, then expanded to the open ocean and to the southern hemisphere. The decline in these predators is changing everything about marine ecosystems systems all over the world. There is a high market demand for these fish and with out stricter fishing regulations the problem will only get worse.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111205170103.htm

In the Gulf of Mexico, a zone called the “Dead-Zone” have been producing some weird fish. “Between 2006 and 2007, nearly a quarter of female Atlantic croaker fish caught in the northern Gulf’s dead zone had developed deformed, testes-like organs instead of ovaries.” This happens because of the waste runoff from the Mississippi River spark blooms of algae and these algaes deplete the ocean of its oxygen. They say it is unclear about how long the fish were living in  low oxygen waters before the fish began developing the sexual defects. Their lab experiments also showed that ten weeks of exposure is all that’s needed.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/05/110531-female-fish-sex-testes-gulf-dead-zone-freshwater-environment/

Why do you think the low oxygen levels are effecting these fish?

Do you think they will adapt to these oxygen levels?

Where have our coral reefs gone? Many argue that a big factor is over fishing, but if you take a look around, coral reefs are dying everywhere, even the ones where fishing is scarce. Although over fishing is a factor and it does impact important algae-eating fish, there are many other reasons including warming ocean, acidity, coastal pollution, coral diseases, etc. “All of these factors are stressing the reefs making them less able to recover from disturbances such as hurricanes, which also seem to be occurring more frequently” said Michelle Paddock of Simon Fraser University in Canada. Reefs are fragile environments; they are networks that really emphasize the literal aphorism, “the cycle of life”.

A research team that has been collecting data from 1955 to 2007 reports a declination of fish across the Caribbean. There has been a dramatic change in fish density in the area, declining from 2.7% to 6% a year. Paddock quotes “If we want to have coral reefs in our future, we must ensure that we reduce damage to these ecosystems… we need to let lawmakers and resource managers know that we care about these ecosystems and we need to push for changes in how they are managed.”

What can you do, on a personal level, to help prevent the declination of our fragile coral reefs? Do you think, as a planet, we can reduce the carbon emissions released in our delicate ocean environments?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090319132911.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111205170103.htm

I was reading this interesting article about how iconic marine predators like sharks, tuna, swordfish, and marlins are becoming increasingly rare under current fishing trends.  The post talked about how fishing is the cause of a 90 percent decrease in top marine predators since the 1950s.  Researchers from UBC’s Fisheries Centre modeled the impact of fishing around the world using satellite images of phytoplankton, which are used to map out where the predators should be, based on food availability, and global databases of fisheries catches from 1950 to 2006.  The article said that the first exploitation of these predators started in coastal areas of northern countries, then spread out to the high seas and to the southern hemisphere.

What kind of effect do you think this decline in top of the food chain predators might have on the rest of the marine ecosystem?

Do you think this could have an effect on the fishing industries?

I just read an article that says because the temperature in the ocean is rising that it is killing off important seaweed. It is estimated that since the 1940′s more then 25% of all temperate seaweeds living in Australia are headed to extinction. This research shows the great affect that global warming has on our environment, They found that in all combined cases the species have changed to more subtropical, and that many temperate species have retreated south towards the Australian south coast.

Do you think that these species will eventually become extinct?

Do you think that global warming has a greater affect on our world then most think?

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=45217810693