December 6, 2013 — Seems like humans aren't the only ones anxious because of climate change. Beneath the briny waves could lie legions of stressed-out fish, whose bodies aren't up to coping with the ongoing acidification of the oceans.
Scientists have known for some time that the lowering of the oceanic pH level – the result of humans pumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere – isn't great for marine life. The CO2 reduces the amount of calcium-based minerals in the water, creating difficulties for animals with shells like oysters, urchins, clams, and plankton. The impact to corals is particularly worrisome, as they lose the ability to rebuild themselves after being harmed by other sea creatures and increasingly warmer seas. The death of corals spells difficulty for the animals that live in them, thought to number up to 9 million species.
But now marine experts believe that acidic oceans are screwing with fish, too. California and Canadian researchers provided the evidence for this in a new study advancing the delightful field of fish behavioral neuroscience. Their investigation uncovered a "potential negative effect of ocean acidification on fish behavior," according to the press people at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, "that can possibly affect normal population dynamics and maybe even affect fisheries."
Their experiment involved a few steps: First, they wanted to see how stressed fish behave. So they doped a bunch of juvenile rockfish with an anxiety-provoking drug, and watched what happened. The medicated fish turned out to be skittish, seeking out and hiding in the dark places in their tank, whereas a group of non-drugged fish circulated widely in both light and dark areas.
Read the full story and watch the video at The Atlantic