Ocean Issues: "Ecological" fish farming

Continuing a long tradition of creative marketing the Pangasius catfish, also called "white ruffy" or "swai", is becoming a popular product of aquaculture in many parts of the world. The Consumerist has more on creative marketing of fish products and "how there's no such thing as white ruffy" here. 

A recent story from Marketplace.org discusses attempts to create a sustainable and environmentally stable aquaculture program for this fish. One of the many beneficial characteristics of pangasius is that, unlike carnivorous fish like salmon, it has a vegetarian diet, which makes for a more efficient energy conversion of the feed into biomass.

Read the full story here.

Ocean Innovation: Marine "vacuum" drone

  We need innovative solutions for growing problems in our ocean environments - like the
accumulation of plastic debris in our oceans. Eliea Hovi and collaborators propose an autonomous marine drone to collect plastic garbage for disposal. Story via tgdaily.

Conservation Biology: Coral reefs in trouble

Sad realism  in a NY Times story on the future of coral reefs.



Consensus Statement on Climate Change and Coral Reefs from the recent International Coral Reef Symposium.

The international Coral Reef Science Community calls on all governments to ensure the future of coral reefs, through global action to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and via improved local protection of coral reefs. Coral reefs are important ecosystems of ecological, economic and cultural value yet they are in decline worldwide due to human activities. Land-based sources of pollution, sedimentation, overfishing and climate change are the major threats, and all of them are expected to increase in severity.

Changes already observed over the last century:

Approximately 25-30% of the world’s coral reefs are already severely degraded by local impacts from land and by over-harvesting.
The surface of the world’s oceans has warmed by 0.7°C, resulting in unprecedented coral bleaching and mortality events.
The acidity of the ocean’s surface has increased due to increased atmospheric CO2.
Sea-level has risen on average by 18cm.
By the end of this century:

CO2 emissions at the current rate will warm sea surface temperatures by at least 2-3°C, raise sea-level by as much as 1.7 meters, reduce ocean pH from 8.1 to less than 7.9, and increase storm frequency and/or intensity. This combined change in temperature and ocean chemistry has not occurred since the last reef crisis 55 million years ago.
Other stresses faced by corals and reefs:

Coral reef death also occurs because of a set of local problems including excess sedimentation, pollution, habitat destruction, and overfishing.
These problems reduce coral growth and vitality, making it more difficult for corals to survive climate changes.
Future impacts on coral reefs:

Most corals will face water temperatures above their current tolerance.
Most reefs will experience higher acidification, impairing calcification of corals and reef growth.
Rising sea levels will be accompanied by disruption of human communities, increased sedimentation impacts and increased levels of wave damage.
Together, this combination of climate-related stressors represents an unprecedented challenge for the future of coral reefs and to the services they provide to people.
Across the globe, these problems cause a loss of reef resources of enormous economic and cultural value. A concerted effort to preserve reefs for the future demands action at global levels, but also will benefit hugely from continued local protection.

Conservation Biology: Coral reefs part II

Other voices weigh in on this weighty topic of the status of coral reefs in the NY Times here and here.

Conservation Biology: Signs of success in Olympic Peninsula river restoration

The Los Angeles Times has an encouraging story of early signs of success in a river restoration in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After re-establishing access to reaches of the river previously blocked by hydroelectric power dams, and steelhead restocking efforts, biologists have found evidence of wild steelhead presence as well as evidence that fish are reproducing in the river. Full story here.
Image via.

Conservation Biology: Wildlife crossings

A study by Caltrans and the National Park Service found that improving wildlife crossings of the 23 freeway in Simi increased the frequency of use of those crossings by large mammals and reduced roadkill. The project installed 12 wildlife gates and cleared three culverts to make them accessible as freeway crossings and improved fences to deter animals from crossing the freeway. Cameras were installed and surveys conducted by the NPS monitored the impact of these improvements on wildlife. Image via
Full story at the VC Star

What is a fish? Part 1

What is a fish?

This might seem like a simple question, but when we consider characteristics that might be used to categorize fish, we find exceptions to every rule.

For example: Fish are aquatic.

We think of fish as aquatic organisms, but there are many fish that are adapted to survive out of water for considerable periods of time. Here are a couple of great examples, the mudskipper and the climbing perch.

Ocean Inspiration: Sarcastic fringehead

A local resident of our nearby Channel Islands, the sarcastic fringehead, demonstrates an amazing adaptation that enables it to communicate with conspecifics and defend its territory.

Three Seas Panama: Light trapping

Gorgeous larval fish and plankton: a sometimes unappreciated, but vital portion, of life in the ocean.

At the Smithsonian in Panama, I constructed a very rudimentary light trap with some nets and my dive light in hopes of catching some larval fishes to show to the Three Seas class. Along with hundreds of thousands of copepods and other tiny creatures, we did get the odd larval fish!

Conservation biology: Steelhead

Thanks to the students of CSUCI Environmental Science and Resource Management department where I guest lectured last week to the Conservation Biology class. A couple of timely followups which are relevant to my lecture on fragmentation and local steelhead populations:

At UCSB's Bren school this Wednesday:

A COMMUNITY COLLOQUIUM "Saving the World One Trout at a Time"
Chris Wood, President & CEO, Trout Unlimited
Wednesday, March 7, 2012, 11:30 - 12:30
Bren Hall 1414
http://www.bren.ucsb.edu/events/chris_wood.htm

and in the Patagonia Spring 2012 catalog, an article on steelhead in the Ventura River:
"Putting Water Back" by Eric Unmach.

Three Seas Panama 2012: Hamlets spawning II

Drs. Clare Wormald and Mia Adreani have just finished teaching the Biology and Ecology of Fishes class.

We, along with the Three Seas students, had some great opportunities to study a diversity of fishes on the reefs around the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute at Bocas del Toro. We observed a variety of behaviors, like territoriality, mating systems, feeding and swimming behaviors of coral reef fishes and studied ecological processes, including the recent lionfish invasion, and the interaction of fishes and their habitats which include coral reefs and the locally abundant mangrove systems. 

Here the students are speeding back from a dive studying the mating systems of a simultaneous hermaphrodite, the hamlet (Hypoplectrus sp.). Around dusk, hamlets pair up and engage in "egg trading", taking turns in both the female and male roles during their spawning bouts. Here's a short video clip of the spawning behavior.

Three Seas Panama 2012: Hamlets spawning

Link

Three Seas Panama 2012: Territoriality experiment

"Model-bottle" experiments introduce an intruder species in a container into a focal fish's territory. A territory holder, Stegastes planifrons, responds by display, chasing and biting at the intruder fish. The territory holder's display includes color changes, fin and body position displays. We might expect a strong response of the territory holder to a conspecific intruder because they have complete resource overlap.

Three Seas Panama 2012: Taking a break from fish catching

Some of our near neighbors viewed from our staff residence here at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Bocas del Toro, Panama.
Click photos to enlarge.

Howler Monkey





Three-toed Sloth

Conservation biology: Video podcasts and lectures

If you have an interest in conservation biology and ecological restoration, pop on over to the dynamic Dr Anderson's video podcasts and lectures channel. Dr Sean Anderson (aka Professor Pongo) is a professor at California State University, Channel Islands and has very diverse interests and research sites, including Ecotoxicology of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the gulf, an ongoing service learning class in New Orleans, roadkill surveys, and a large conservation project in Turkey.

Professor Pongo's Channel

Ocean Inspiration: Manta rays

My trip to Hawaii to dive with manta rays. 

Ram feeding - pow! Check out that MPF oscillation. 

Three Seas Panama 2012: Mangrove fishes

Many coral reef fishes use mangrove and nearshore areas as habitat or nursery grounds. Snorkeling just off the dock Mia and I found many species that are on our class fish list* as well as others not seen previously on the reefs we have dived nearby. See if you can add to the list that we have started for this area (post in the comments or email us to add to the list).

Chaetodon capistratus *
Haemulon bonariense
Haemulon flavolineatum *
Lutjanus apodus *
Lutjanus griseus
Lutjanus jocu
Pomacanthus paru juv
Stegastes adustus *
Sphyraena barracuda
Sphoeroides spengleri 
     (see below to the left of picture, click to enlarge)

  

Many snappers (Lutjanidae) and grunts (Haemulidae) are happily hanging out under the dock.

Three Seas Panama 2012: Dr Mia Adreani

The 2012 Three Seas Biology and Ecology of Fishes class is about to begin and Drs. Clare Wormald and Mia Adreani are glad to be returning to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Bocas del Toro, Panama. 

Dr. Mia Adreani is a postdoctoral scholar at California State University, Northridge and is an expert in reef fish reproduction. Her research interests include

•Behavioral ecology and reproductive biology of marine fishes
•Evolution of mating systems
•Population dynamics of artificial reef systems

This is her third visit to the STRI research station in Bocas del Toro, having previously visited to study reproduction in corals. We welcome her expertise and experience working with coral reef fishes to the Three Seas Biology and Ecology of Fishes class.

Ocean Inspiration: Mimics

Opportunistic mimicry by a Jawfish. 
Rocha, Ross & Kopp. 2011. Coral Reefs. pdf.  doi.

"Jawfish are poor swimmers and usually spend their entire adult lives very close to burrows in the sand, to where they quickly retreat, tail first, upon sight of any potential predator (Smith-Vaniz 1989). In the photos
and video presented here, the Black-Marble Jawfish seems to have found a safe way to move around in the open. The Mimic Octopus looks so much like its poisonous models that it is relatively safe from predation, even when swimming in the open (Norman et al. 2001), and by mimicking the octopus’ arms, the Jawfish seems to also gain protection. "

 

Ocean Issues: Overfishing

A single 269kg (593lb) bluefin tuna sold for almost 3/4 of a million dollars.

BBC News reports that the world record price paid for bluefin tuna was recently broken.

56.49m yen ($736,000, £472,125) was paid for a single bluefin tuna at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market's first auction of the year.

Only last year, the previous record price was paid for  a 342kg bluefin tuna caught off Japan's northern island of Hokkaido for 32.49m yen, or nearly $400,000 (£257,320).

via