In Year 5 Of Oyster Reproductive Failure, Pacific Growers Eyeing Acidification As Cause Of Collapse

[hatrack]

The collapse began rather unspectacularly. In 2005, when most of the millions of Pacific oysters in this tree-lined estuary failed to reproduce, the shellfish growers of Willapa Bay, Washington state largely shrugged it off. In a region that provides one-sixth of the nation's oysters - the epicentre of the West Coast's $US111 million ($NZ160 million) oyster industry - everyone knows nature can be fickle.

But then the failure was repeated in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It spread to an Oregon hatchery that supplies baby oysters to shellfish nurseries from Puget Sound to Los Angeles. Eighty percent of that hatchery's oyster larvae died, too. Now, as the US oyster industry heads into the fifth summer of its most unnerving crisis in decades, scientists are pondering a disturbing theory.

They suspect water that rises from deep in the Pacific Ocean - icy seawater that surges into Willapa Bay and is pumped into seaside hatcheries - may be corrosive enough to kill baby oysters. If true, that could mean shifts in ocean chemistry associated with carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels may be impairing sea life faster and more dramatically than expected.

And it would vault a key Washington industry to the centre of international debate over how to respond to marine changes expected to ripple through and undermine ocean food webs. Scientists seeking to explain what's plaguing these coastal oysters say the link to more corrosive water is strong but anecdotal. It could be just one of several factors. But the possibility leaves some shellfish farmers uneasy about more than just their future business. Indications that ocean acidification may already play a role in the decline of oysters are a "sign of things being out of balance, and that scares the living daylights out of me," said third-generation oysterman Brian Sheldon.

EDIT

http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/96364/tide-acid-ocean-fear-rolls-over-oyster-industry

[AtheistCrusader]

1. I'll start with a disclaimer.

I hate oysters. They are disgusting, nasty tasting creatures that should never be consumed as food, and I would not shed a tear if they were extinct from a food-standpoint. HATE them.


That said, I am interested in a clean environment and a stable food chain. It should be a simple test to show if the areas in question have a lack of CACL super-saturation in the seawater. There should be little to no guessing here. What was the concentration this year, the previous year, and so on. In a controlled environment can we demonstrate the slimy little beasts cannot or will not reproduce if you lower the CACL concentration too much, and what is the exact breaking point?

So far, on the eastern seaboard, the lowered calcium carbonate super-saturation of seawater due to increase in dissolved CO2, has not resulted in the expected shellfish catastrophe. Is there a different set of rules for this species of shellfish? Is there a significant difference between the Pacific and the Atlantic (perhaps due to temperature?) in carrying capacity for calcium carbonate?

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=63809&ct=162


Why are we speculating? This is a simple test. We have records that aren't thousands of years old inaccessible ice cores. We should KNOW the answer to this issue.

I don't care about the oysters, but please solve this before my precious clams and mussels are in danger.

:nuke:

[hatrack]

3. If there is an acidification connection (which is by no means assured) . . .

. . . could there be a substantial difference between the Pacific and Atlantic basins simply based on the fact that one ocean is substantially closer to China and all of its power-plant output than the other?

It seems logical, but then I'm not an atmospheric scientist, either . . .

[pscot]

4. Not to forget the vast numbers of container ships

that ply these waters. They are notorious polluters that burn the lowest grade of high sulpher fuel.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Something to do with BPA perhaps?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=83864&mesg_id=83864