Fish that ‘farm’ their own patches of seaweed alter their ‘cropping’ practices under high CO2 conditions, researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia have found.
Fish that ‘farm’ their own patches of seaweed alter their ‘cropping’ practices under high CO2 conditions, researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia have found.
Published in the Nature publication, Nature Ecology and Evolution, the researchers studied damselfish at undersea volcanic seeps in New Zealand.
The seawater at the seeps has high CO2 conditions that naturally mimic the ocean CO2 levels expected by the end of the century. That rise is due to ongoing human greenhouse gas emissions.
Damselfish are known for their farming. They don’t just graze, they select a patch of algal turf to protect, weed out unwanted plants, defend the patch against intruders and fertilise their territory through defecation.
“Climate change and ocean acidification are forecast to decrease species diversity in our oceans but we discovered that some herbivorous fish species might actually increase in number by weeding their territories in such way that their food (turf algae) experiences faster growth rates,” says project leader Professor Ivan Nagelkerken, from the University’s Environment Institute.
Read more at University of Adelaide
Image: Fish that 'farm' their own patches of seaweed alter their 'cropping' practices under high CO2 conditions, researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia have found. (Credit: Camilo Ferreira)
