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Started at the Bottom, Now We’re Here…

Posted on November 24, 2021 by Adam Hasik Leave a comment

Predicting how climate change threatens the prey base of Arctic marine predators, Florko et al., 2021 Ecology Letters. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13866

Image credit: Kingfisher, CC BY-SA 3.0

The Crux

We are all (unfortunately) very familiar with the effects of climate change on arctic ecosystems. Horrifying images of polar bears on small blocks of ice and the shrinking polar ice caps are but two of the many results of a warming climate, yet a great deal of the work in the realm has focused on the the charismatic, apex species (like the aforementioned polar bear). These are obviously important things to consider, but it is also necessary to look into the effects of climate change on the lower positions within food webs, as any change to these organisms and processes are likely to cascade upwards to effect the upper trophic levels (like our friend the polar bear).

Hudson Bay in North America is one such area impacted by our warming climate. Due to the changes in temperatures, the energy flowing through ecosystems has shifted away from away from species living in the ice and on the bottom. As a result pelagic (free-swimming) species are favored over benthic species (those living on the bottom of the bay), which alters the rest of the food web itself. Specifically, the fish that feed on pelagic species are increasing, while those that feed on benthic species are decreasing. Today’s authors wanted to understand how these changes in fish numbers are will affect Arctic predators, namely the ringed seal (Pusa hispida).

Paper of the Week

Trash Talk

Posted on August 20, 2021 by Tanya Strydom Leave a comment

When the blokes are at the pub after a long day out by the water and bragging (overexaggerating) about their ‘big catch’ have you ever noticed that (despite the variation in the tallness of the tale) all the fish look the same? And no, its not that all fish look the same (a lot of fish species do not actually look like the ‘typical’ fish that you expect) but more as a result of a long history of colonialist tastes influencing what is considered a desirable fish for sport fishing (spoiler: they look more similar to species you would expect to find in Europe).

This has resulted in any non-European looking fish being labelled as rough/trash. Which, firstly, isn’t very nice, but also means that these species do not receive the same level of protection or consideration as their non-trashy companions – they have even been actively eradicated by some!

Kat Kerlin wrote a lovely piece in physics.org discussing this issue and how we should actively try and address this prejudice and be mindful of how colonialist thinking has shaped our view and approaches to conservation.

Elology for the Masses

Marvels of the African Great Lakes: Studying Cichlids With Dr. Frederic Schedel

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Eva Paulus One comment

Africa has long been romanticized in regards to the natural world. From crocodiles snapping at wildebeest to lions lounging on the plains, the continent is packed with charismatic animals. Often slipping under the radar is the fact that Africa’s freshwater ecosystems are also teeming with stunning wildlife.

The Forefront

Can Pizza Affect A Bird’s Fishiness?

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Sam Perrin One comment

Fishiness of Piscine Birds Linked to Absence of Poisonous Fungi but not Pizza (2020) Stervander & Haelewaters, Oceanography and Fisheries, 12(5), DOI:10.19080/OFOAJ.2020.12.555850.

The Crux

One of the most worrying things about the global phenomena that is climate change is that we are so uncertain of its exact effects on our planet’s biodiversity. There are the more obvious questions that need to be asked, like how will warming temperatures affect species ranges, and will cold-tolerant species face significant population losses?

Yet there are other less obvious concerns out there which need to be tested. For instance, seeing as there are far more fish-like birds in Antarctica, do colder temperatures lead to birds being more fish-like? And will a warming climate therefore lead to a world devoid of fishy birds? This week’s researchers had a different theory, and used some interesting statistical techniques to test it out. The project was inspired by a particularly memorable pizza consumed by one of the researchers, in that it looked at “fishiness, birdiness, lack of fungal toxicity, and effects of prolonged heating”*.

Paper of the Week

Defining Nemo: A Deep Dive Into Taxonomy (With Kai The Fish Guy)

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Sam Perrin Leave a comment

One of the defining moments of my childhood was a holiday around Australia in the back of a Holden Commodore. My parents drove my sister and me around the whole country, and right in the middle of the holiday we took a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. Swimming among such a mind-blowing variety of fish species was an unforgettable experience, and one I was able to pass onto my own kid last year. We’d get back into the boat after a swim and stare at an ID card my wife had bought us, trying to figure out which of the cornucopia of dazzlingly-coloured species we had seen.

The Forefront

Incompetent Invaders Dilute Parasites and Alter Disease Dynamics

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Sam Perrin One comment

Guest post by Paula Tierney

Invasive freshwater fish (Leuciscus leuciscus) acts as a sink for a parasite of native brown trout Salmo trutta (2020) Tierney et al. Biological Invasions. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02253-1

The Crux

From house cats to cane toads, invasive species are one of the biggest threats worldwide to native plants and wildlife, second only to habitat destruction. There are a few different definitions of an invasive species, but two consistent tenets are a) that they are a living organism spreading and forming new populations outside of their native range and b) causing some kind of damage to the native ecosystem, economy or human health. As humans move around the globe with increasing ease (these last two months aside), the spreading of invasive species is increasingly common in our globalised world.

The spread of invasive species creates new ecological interactions between native and invasive species that can impact how our native ecosystems function, including disease dynamics. One key set of interactions that can be completely changed by the introduction of the invader are that of parasites and their hosts. If development and transmission of native parasites is different in invasive hosts compared to their usual native hosts, the parasite dynamics of the whole system can be altered.

Paper of the Week

Water-Based Recreation Can Promote Non-Native Introductions

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Sam Perrin 2 comments

Image Credit: Manfred Antranias Zimmer, Pixabay licence, Image Cropped

Invasion of freshwater ecosystems is promoted by network connectivity to hotspots of human activity (2019) Chapman et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography, https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13051

The Crux

The spread of invasive species throughout freshwater ecosystems is a topic we’ve looked at before on Ecology for the Masses. In a previous paper breakdown we talked about how recreational is heavily responsible for the presence of non-native fish at a European scale.

Our paper this week takes a more local approach. Can we predict the presence of non-native birds, invertebrates and fish by looking at the presence of human activity, and where that human activity is present?

Paper of the Week

Supermarket Science: How Consumer Choices Could Affect Ocean Biodiversity

Posted on July 11, 2019 by Caitlin Mandeville Leave a comment

Image Credit: AntTree, CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

Can you help ease the global biodiversity crisis through the choices you make at your local fish market? A recent report by US-based nonprofit Eating with the Ecosystem suggests that the answer is a resounding “Yes!”

Opinions

When the Growing Gets Hot

Posted on May 29, 2019 by Adam Hasik 3 comments

Growth is a critical aspect of life for all organisms, and understanding what can and cannot affect it allows us to predict what effect climate change may have on organisms like these zebrafish (Image Credit: Lynn Ketchum, CC BY-SA 2.0).

Warming increases the cost of growth in a model vertebrate (2019) Barneche et al., Functional Ecology, https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13348

The Crux

In ecology, how organisms grow is relevant across all levels of life. Growing faster than others can be selected for as an evolutionary advantage, if being bigger earlier means that you have a competitive advantage over other members of your species.

Because growth is so critical to life, it is important to understand what may affect the ability of an organism to grow. The only way an organism can grow is by converting energy it acquires from food to its own body mass, but outside influences, like temperature, can affect how efficient an organism is at this energy conversion. The authors of today’s paper wanted to investigate if this efficiency and the cost of growth itself changed across a range of projected temperatures.
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