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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Fish shrinking due to global warming Tuesday, July 21, 2009 » 09:16am Fish have lost half their average body mass and smaller species are making up a larger proportion of European fish stocks as a result of global warming. 'It's huge,' said study author Martin Daufresne of the Cemagref Public Agricultural and Environmental Research Institute in Lyon, France. 'Size is a fundamental characteristic that is linked to a number of biological functions, such as fecundity - the capacity to reproduce.' Smaller fish tend to produce fewer eggs. They also provide less sustenance for predators - including humans - which could have significant implications for the food chain and ecosystem. A similar shrinking effect was recently documented in Scottish sheep and Daufresne said it is possible that global warming could have 'a significant impact on organisms in general.' Earlier research has already established that fish have shifted their geographic ranges and their migratory and breeding patters in response to rising water temperatures. It has also been established that warmer regions tend to be inhabited by smaller fish. Daufresne and his colleagues examined long-term surveys of fish populations in rivers, streams and the Baltic and North Seas and also performed experiments on bacteria and plankton. They found the individual species lost an average of 50 per cent of their body mass over the past 20 to 30 years while the average size of the overall fishing stock had shrunk by 60 per cent. This was a result of a decrease in the average size-at-age and an increase in the proportion of juveniles and small-sized species, Daufresne said. 'It was an effect that we observed in a number of organisms and in a number of very different environments - on fish, on plankton, on bacteria, in fresh water, in salt water - and we observed a global shrinking of size for all the organisms in all the environments,' Daufresne said in a telephone interview. While commercial and recreational fishing did impact some of the fisheries studied, it 'cannot be considered as the unique trigger' for the changes in size, the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found. 'Although not negating the role of other factors, our study provides strong evidence that temperature actually plays a major role in driving changes in the size structure of populations and communities,' the study concluded.
Poster Comment: I guess the world's average global climate temperature is heating up after-all.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 4.
#1. To: buckeroo, *Agriculture-Environment* (#0)
And the sun doesn't drive our climate either. LOL. Gotta love these studies.
Of course you are correct. Still, overall economic activity is driven by matters of price/demand yields. If fish are smaller in size, then the price of the same (yield for yield) shall go up. I guess what it all means is that we can't enjoy a night out on the town with an inexpensive fish dinner. We will probably have to enjoy a Der Wiener-Schnitzel Hot Dawg for about five bucks. Yuck!
www.surfacestations.org/odd_ sites.htm I think we should play a joke on these whack jobs. The above URL is to a site that has photos of offiical reporting stations where college professors on the payroll of the Bilderberg Society Foundations have placed thermometers next to Weber grills and to HVAC vents. What we do is to invite our friends over to a barbecue, move the thermometer a little closer to the grill and fire up the Weber. Then we issue a press release saying that UC Davis (or fill in the name of a local university) is experiencing total eco collapse due to Global Warming. It is 150 degrees and too late to cut Carbon Dioxide emissions to save the planet. We are all doomed and only have a few hours left before we die. Maybe it would make a great YouTube video.
Replies to Comment # 4.
#7. To: Horse, buckeroo, christine (#4)
I know some of the people who did the surveys on those sites. Had to laugh at one of their pictures. It was a site that hadn't had a temp report in years. The station was surrounded by pot plants. Wonder why they forgot to file their reports?
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