Featured Image Credit: Eurek Alert
By Hannah Rosenoff
To put it simply, ocean acidification is what happens when the ocean takes in too much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This abundance of carbon dioxide drives the pH down, making an acidic environment for the ocean’s lovely critters.
Researchers from the University of Adelaide studied the symbiotic relationship between young fish and jellyfish tentacles. The fish babies seek shelter from the open water by swimming into the poisonous tentacles.
About 80 species keep up these wacky relationships with the jellyfish. The tentacles are the perfect place for baby fish because they reduce their risk of being gobbled up by predators. There’s something about the young age of the fish that allows them into the tentacles unscathed.
Scientists don’t know exactly how the juvenile fish can swim among the tentacles, yet avoid the poison. It could be their nimble swimming skills that allow them to dodge around the tentacles and up to the bell. Or it could be that baby fish are resistant to the toxins because of a protective coating on the skin.
Photo Credit: Earth Touch News
Sometimes this behavior backfires. The jellyfish can decide to eat the baby fish. Kind of a complicated relationship if you ask us. But even with the chance of becoming instant lunch, the odds of surviving among the tentacles are much better than staying out in the open.
The team of researchers created an experiment to see how ocean acidification will affect this relationship. They constructed an aquarium with highly dissolved carbon dioxide levels to observe their behavior.
The control group, with normal conditions, had 86% of the fish enter the tentacles. Only 63% in the acidified conditions started a relationship with the jellyfish. Also the overall time spent in the host jelly was 3 times less than the normal.
This is not a good sign as jellyfish seem to play a big role in surviving the dangerous early life as a fish. The study concluded with this statement,
“Changing ocean conditions are likely to have significant negative impacts on this relationship and therefore, fish populations,” said Professor Kylie Pitt at Griffith University
Is this something to worry about? Yeah we think so. Fish populations are already dwindling from overfishing and unsustainable fishing methods. The consequences of ocean acidification are not all known, but experiments like this are windows into the shaky future.
This is just one relationship that will get screwed up from ocean acidification. Many others have yet to be studied, but so far so (not) good.
The original study published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society B