ScienceDaily (2011-07-01) -- The first scientific results from an ambitious voyage led by a group of graduate students from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego offer a stark view of human pollution and its infiltration of an area of the ocean that has been labeled as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."
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| Credit: J. Leicther |
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In the beginning of the year there, was an article I wrote about published in Biology News about the rapidly growing industry of fish farming. Aquaculture is now responsible for 50% of all the consumed fish in the world. In a study completed by Stanford University, growth trends and environmental impact were looked into. While this move into aquaculture seems promising and sustainable, there are still a few kinks to work out.
While the farms reduce strain of wild fisheries for certain species, many species are still farmed in pretty unsustainable ways. Many fish farms use large amounts of fish oil and fish meal to enhance the flavor of the fish they are eating. All of this fish oil and fish meal comes from wild caught anchovies and sardines. This is putting a strain on those fisheries. Small schooling fish like these are an important part of the ecosystems in which they thrive so reducing their numbers could cause a significant strain on other forms of wildlife. To produce one pound of salmon, it is estimated that approximately five pounds of wild caught fish are used. Salmon is still a popular choice for consumers around the world, so that is literally tons of wild fish caught. Makes the salmon you eat seem a bit more valuable, doesn't it?
Not all farm raised fish have this sort of impact, though. There are many species of fish that are very well farmed and incredibly sustainable. Many of these are vegetarian fish like carp and tilapia. Between 1997 and 2007, there was a decrease in the amount of fishmeal used to raise these fish by about half. However, there is such a high demand for these fish that many of the farms still use some fishmeal and 12 million metric tons of fishmeal were used for vegetarian fish in 2007! That is a lot of fishmeal! NOAA is working on a plan to regulate and better manage these farms to become more sustainable and really become less of a strain on the marine ecosystem and the environment. Remember, to really know where your fish is from, just ask. If you want more info, download a Seafood Watch guide for your area. You can even check during dinner from your cell phone by going to mobile.seafoodwatch.org. I carry a sushi guide and national guide with me everywhere I go!
I need your help, blogosphere! In this picture, taken a few days ago by the hubs, there is a beautiful green turtle with some friends following him. I know the picture is a bit blue, but the fish were very yellow and my Peterson field guide
is in Florida. Do any of you know what this fish is?
So recently the people at the Monterey Bay Aquarium think they have solved the mystery of a very peculiar fish. This fish is commonly called the barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) and has some peculiar adaptations for life in the deep. The fish was first described in 1939. It has, since that time, been assumed that it's tubular eyes were very adept at collecting light. What they didn't know was that the eyes moved. It was believed that the fish had "tunnel vision" and could only see a set area right above its head.
The two spots above the mouth are actually the fish's nostrils. It was thought that the eyes enclosed in its transparent dome could only look upward. Recently, however, researchers with Monterey Bay used ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) to film these creatures in the wild. In the video you can see the eyes rotate quite a bit. It also appears that these fish steal their food from siphonophores floating by with food trapped in their tentacles. Siphonophores, by the way are Cnidarians (pronounced nye-DAIR-ians) and are related to corals and jellyfish. These creatures trap animals in very long tentacles and consume them similar to jellies. The barreleye sees the trapped food and then swwops in for the steal.
The "sheild" around the eyes is also a new discovery. Up until this video, any specimens found had no sheild. This was probably due to damage on the way up from the deep . This is evident in the following illustration from the Canadian Museum of Nature.
As you can see, it looks a bit different from the same fish studied alive using the ROVs.
They also discovered how the fish swims. Using its amazing flat fins, they can almost hover in place. They can also manuever quite well. To find out more, read the press release here.
We all know the world's oceans are of great importance, but there were two articles that caught my attention today while carousing the web.
One article from Science Daily was about how marine algae can be used as a new source of biofuel. Since oil seems to be on everyone's minds these days, it is no wonder scientists are looking elsewhere for our fuel needs. The research I am speaking of was conducted at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. This is an enormous undertaking and as was written in Science Daily:
The prospect of squeezing billions of gallons of biofuel oil from marine algae is enticing, but to transform tiny lime-green-colored plant-like organisms into a viable and realistic fuel option, they must be tested and grown on a massive scale. Intermediate-sized, and eventually immense, algae production sites will be required to produce an economically relevant quantity of algae-based oil for biodiesel fuel in cars, trucks, and airplanes.However, this is still a step in the right direction.
Finfish, mollusks, and crustaceans dominate aquaculture production; seafood exports generate more money for developing countries than meat, coffee, tea, bananas, and rice combined.
So I didn't post yesterday even though I said I would post everyday in the month of October. It's also Wednesday, and I just do not have the inspiration to do my weekly Debate! again. Maybe it is because of all the political debates recently. I just don't have the patience for it. I do, however, have the energy to do a little bit of sciency news snippets! Here goes:
Fish with Fingers: Researchers have taken x-rays of a fish fossil, Panderichthys, and found that there are rudimentary fingers in the fins. This show that rudimentary fingers were first seen in development earlier than first thought. Weird, huh?
A "Nobel" Woman: The Nobel Prizes are being announced and this week the talk was all Chemistry. It seems to be on all the news sources. However, the award for physiology and medicine has already be granted and one of the winners was a woman!
"Tubular" Solar Energy: A company in California, Solyndra, Inc., designs photovoltaic (solar) cells that are cylindrical in shape to capture light from many angles. This increases the amount of energy one can harness from the sun.
Life Saving Birds: A study done at Washington University in St. Louis shows that areas high in bird diversity have lower risks of West Nile Virus. Yay for mosquito eating birds!
Going Glacier Gone: A study done by United States Geological Survey (USGS) show that Alaska's glaciers are disappearing despite people's assumptions that climate change is a farce. More than 99% of the glaciers in Alaska are retreating at an alarming pace.
Now you guys are all filled with science news! Happy Wednesday!
Photo of Panderichthys courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
At the gentle nudging of SeaLaura, I am posting some pictures to submit to the weekly "Thematic Photographic" over at Written, Inc.'s blog. This weeks theme is nature so I am pulling out some of my faves...
First up is a lake in the Tetons on the Wyoming side... I can't get over this view. The clouds were amazing that day and really is one of my favorite pictures of that location. This was over 3 years ago.
Next is some of my favorite reef in Lerkenlund. This was an amazing bait fish experience. They were all making highways around this coral head. Blew me a
way. I know SeaLaura wanted me to post an iguana pict for this, but I have a few more that I want to share with you guys later! I hope you have enjoyed my asides today.
Thematic Photographic: Nature by Marizela Moya is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
In case you haven't figured it out, I live in St. Thomas, VI. We are a part of the United States just located in the Caribbean. The Caribbean (for all us science types) is a tectonic plate all its own and the collision and interaction of this little plate with other larger ones is how the Antilles were formed. Because our islands with the rest of the ones in the Caribbean form a chain that acts as a barrier for the fierce Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea is calm and tranquil pretty much consistently.
View from Annaburg Plantation, St. John. Copyright 2007 M. Moya
Reef, Gorgonian, and Bait Fish Highway. Lerkenlund, St. Thomas. Copyright 2006 M. Moya.
Iguana in Papaya Tree. Bonne Resolution, St. Thomas. Copyright 2006 M. Moya.
Me and my doggy on the beach at Lerkenlund. Copyright 2006 M. Moya.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a unique program that I learned about by picking up a card at my university entitled "Seafood Watch." What I picked up was actually a pocket guide that allowed me to see which types of seafood were harvested in ways that can sustain each of their respective ecosystems. The website goes into more detail.
While protecting our oceans supply of fish may seem like an obvious thing to do for some, for others it is not so obvious. I am gonna try to give a short reasoning as to why fish are vital.
First off, there are about 27,000 species of fish, making up more than 1/2 of all documented vertebrates. Also, they live in water, which covers most of the earth. 70% of the earth is salt water and salt water makes up 97% of liquid water. Fresh water covers 1% of the earth but only .0093% of it is in liquid form. So fishes (yes that is a word) dominate a much larger region than terrestrial invertebrates. This makes them prime for various scientific studies as there are fish that can handle tons of pressure variations and various temperatures from boiling lakes to freezing icecaps. Yet because they all live in water, there are constraints to how they form so most fish are recognizable as fish.
If you are into science, more than likely some research on fish has been done in your area.
Areas of interests that fish can help with:
-Ecology
-fisheries
-habitat segregation
-marine natural products: venoms toxins and mucus
-Enzyme kinetics
-physiological adaptations
-food science
-how to freeze cells
-morphology
-hydrodynamics
-survival (lost at sea?)
-bioluminescence
-reproductive strategies
.... the list goes on and on so I will not bore you.
However(!), due to overfishing and unsound farming practices, we are either losing good land to bad farming or depleting fish supplies everywhere. Many people rely on fish as an important part of their diets. In some places it is THE MAIN source of vital protein. Overfishing can seriously impede the production of a species of fish the following year. You need fish to make more fish! There is a fine line between taking just enough to sustain it properly and overfishing. Unfortunately, greed usually wins.
Also, bad fish farming practices can lead to overfishing too, since most fish eat fish meal in these farms. Also, valuable, usually arable land is lost to create these farms. Net pen farming can be bad as well due to the amount of feces in an area polluting nearby coastlines. Again, there are safe farming practices that can be taken. There is more information on all of this at the above website. While you are there download a seafood guide for you wallet or order some to pass out to people you know who eat fish but want things to be a bit better for the oceans.
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