Ocean acidification to hit West Coast Dungeness crab fishery, study shows

摘要

How might ocean acidification affect the West Coast food web and fisheries in 50 years?The acidification of the ocean expected as seawater absorbs increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will reverberate through the West Coast's marine food web, but not necessarily in the ways you might expect, new research shows.Dungeness crabs, for example, likely will suffer as their food sources decline. Dungeness crab fisheries valued at about $220 million annually may face a strong downturn over the next 50 years, according to the research published Jan. 12 in the journal Global Change Biology. But pteropods and copepods, tiny marine organisms with shells that are vulnerable to acidification, likely will experience only a slight overall decline because they are prolific enough to offset much of the impact, the study found.