#ocean biology

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Waves of dead sea animals - whales, salmon, sardines, and clams - have been piling up on Chile’s Pacific beaches over the last few weeks. What’s going on?

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(Miles of dead clams were found on the beaches of southern Chile. Photo by Alvaro Vidal/AFP/Getty Images)

Last year, scientists could not explain why close to 300 whales turned up dead on remote bays of the southern coast of the country.

In March of 2016, the country faced a huge algal bloom which strongly impacted the salmon farming industry. This surge in algaekilled an estimated 40,000 tons of salmon in the Los Lagos region — equal to about 12% of Chile’s annual production and enough to fill 14 Olympic-sized pools. Thousands of tons of dead salmon ended up being dumped in the sea 80 miles offshore. 

This month, about 8,000 tons of sardines washed up at the mouth of the central Queule River while thousands of dead clams piled up on the coast of Chiloé Island. On Santa Maria Island, cuttlefish have washed up dead in the thousands.

The authorities are putting the blame on the red tide, and have banned fishing in the affected regions, putting thousands of fishermen out of work. 

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(Details and location of Chiloé Island, in Chile. Map source)

Ared tide is a harmful algal bloom which like its name indicates turns the water red, while potentially producing an elevated concentration of toxins. 

It is a common and naturally recurring phenomenon in the waters of Chile, but scientists estimate that this current outbreak is unprecedented, extending further north than usual. Many point to an unusually strong El Niño weather pattern this year as a key factor. 

El Niño is a disruptive weather phenomenon that comes with warming sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. Warmer waters can lead to greater quantities of algae, which kills others species by consuming oxygen in the water or filling it with toxins.

The red tide makes the mussels, clams, and other fish essentially poisonous, and thus is heavily influencing the local economies and livelihood of thousands. Fishermen around the island of Chiloé are now protesting and accusing the government of failing to alleviate the economic losses they have suffered. 

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(Red tide seen from above. Photo source.)

“We think that a common factor in the deaths of creatures in southern Chile, in the salmon farms and in fish off the coast is the El Niño phenomenon,” the Chilean fisheries institute IFOP said in a statement to AFP.

While the government is quick to put the blame on the red tide and El Niño, scientists suspect there may be other factors in play.  Warmer waters from El Niño do foster ideal conditions for algae to grow, but a significant nutrient input can also help trigger the bloom.

Laura Farias, an oceanographer at Chile’s Concepcion University, suggested in an interview thatthe growth of fish farming in Chile’s southern Patagonia region could be to criticize for killing the salmon and clams.

“There are studies indicating that in Patagonia the greater occurrence of toxic blooms could be a consequence of aquaculture,” she said.

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(8,000 tons of sardines were washed up at the mouth of the Queule river. Photo found on Facebook: Armada de Chile)

Incidentally,artisanal fishing unions are attributing the size of this year’s red tide on pollution by the farmed salmon industry. Chiloé residents blame the salmon industry and the government for the contamination, alleging that this oversized red tide began just after 4,000 tons of dead salmon were dumped 80 miles offshore from the island.

Other disagree, and argue the dumping of the salmon has no correlation:

The bloom of algae is linked to the change in ocean conditions fostered by El Niño. The relationship to the dumping of the salmon has no scientific basis,”explained Universidad de Concepcion agricultural researcher Renato Quiñones. 

While no scientific data is available yet, it is probably a combination of natural reasons (El Niño weather pattern, seasonal algal bloom) aggravated by unnatural causes (fish farming run-off and pollution) that is resulting in the overwhelming and heartbreaking die-off of the local marine wildlife. 

In a study published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles on  May 2, 2016, scientists from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science found that the limestone that forms the foundation of coral reefs along the Florida Reef Tract is dissolving at a very rapid rate during the fall and winter months on many reefs in the Florida Keys. The research also showed that the upper Florida Keys were the most impacted by the annual loss of reef.

For this study Dr. Chris Langdon and his team collected water samples in 2009 and 2010 along a 124-mile (200-kilometer) stretch of the Florida reef, from north of Biscayne Bay to the Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary in the Atlantic Ocean, about five miles off Big Pine Key in the Lower Keys. This data establishes a baseline of the health of the reefs, which could then be used for future studies that look at changes along the reef tract.

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(Map of the study area. Click here to enlarge.)

The team found that reef dissolution in the fall and winter months is a significant problem on reefs in the upper Keys, where the loss of limestone is exceeding the amount the corals are able to produce in the spring and summer on an annual basis.  The northern-most reef is already net erosional (-1.1 ± 0.4 kg CaCO3 m-2 y-1) and mid-reefs to the south were net depositional on an annual basis (0.4 ± 0.1 kg CaCO3 m-2 y-1) but erosional during the fall and winter. Only the two southern-most reefs were net depositional year-round.

“The reef needs a certain amount of carbonite production every year to stay in place,”  Landgon says.“if it’s in excess of that, the reefs grow. When it reaches zero, they are holding even. When it switches to negative, that’s when they start wasting away.”

On top of supporting most of the biodiversity in the oceans, coral reefs are also crucial for the economies and tourism industries of coastal countries. In Florida, it is estimated that the reefs have an asset value of $7.6 billion, and they support over 70,000 jobs.

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(The thickets of staghorn corals  (A. cervicornis) are gone today replaced by a structure-less bottom littered with the decaying skeletons of staghorn coral. Photo by Chris Langdon)

The results of this study indicate that parts of the Florida Reef Tract have already crossed the tipping point for carbonate production and other parts are getting close. Moreover, the area has suffered greatly over the last few years due to warmer sea surface temperatures, and heavy coral bleaching episodes that resulted in a significant loss of corals and in the spread of diseases.

Since the data for the study were collected in 2009 and 2010, it is now necessary to conduct a similar analysis to see how the reefs are faring today. Considering that the worst bleaching years on record in the Florida Keys were 2014-2015, it is very possible that the reefs are in a worse state nowadays.

Researchers Capture Rare Footage of Thousands of Red Crabs Swarming Close to the Sea Floor

A research team studying biodiversity at the Hannibal Bank Seamount off the coast of Panama has captured unique video of thousands of red crabs swarming in low-oxygen waters just above the seafloor.

The researchers describe their findings in a paper published April 12, 2016, in the journal PeerJ.

No one had ever observed this species so far south, and to find a species at the extreme of their range and to be so abundant is very unusual.

These crabs migrate up and down the water column and are favored prey for yellowfin tuna. They are also an important food source for a variety of other fish, birds, and marine mammals.

In a study published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, scientists from the University of Chicago have shown for the first time that pectoral fins in at least one species of fish possess neurons and cells that are extremely sensitive to touch. 

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(A pictus catfish. Photo Credit: Adam Hardy, University of Chicago)

Of course, we are well aware of how sensitive and finely-tuned the human fingertip is, and how and even slight touches convey a great deal of information about our physical environment. It turns out that some fish use their pectoral fins in pretty much the same way.

The team studied the pictus catfish, a bottom-dweller from the Amazon River. Their question was simple: can fish feel things with their fins? Well, it looks like it!

Scientists used the flat end of a pin as well as a brush to stimulate the fish’s pectoral fins while measuring the resulting neural activity. They observed that not only the fish’s neurons responded to the touch, but they also conveyed information about the pressure being applied as well as the motion of the brush!

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(A pictus catfish in motion. Gif source: ScienceLife University of Chicago)

There have been studies showing that fish possess the sense of proprioception, meaning they are aware of where their fins are relative to their bodies. This study however, is the first to show that fish fins can sense touch, and are able to sense light pressure and subtle motion, similar to mammalian skins.

“Like us, fish are able to feel the environment around them with their fins,said  Melina Hale, another one of the authors. "Touch sensation may allow fish to live in dim environments, using touch to navigate when vision is limited.”

An analysis of the cellular structures of the fin revealed the presence of cells that closely resemble Merkel cells, which are associated with nerve endings in the skin of mammals and are essential for touch.

The team is currently conducting the same experiment with other species of fish (like flounders), but they are confident that such sensitivity to touch exists in other bottom-dweller fishes, and could be useful in nocturnal or deep-sea environments as well.

Coral reefs are among the most dynamic and diverse ecosystems on the planet. They provide a safe habitat for hundreds of marine species, along with numerous resources necessary for the economic survival of smaller nations. Nevertheless, ocean acidification is one of the greatest threats that coral reefs face nowadays. It is now necessary to understand the problem, and to act quickly to limit the consequences potentially insuperable if coral reefs were to disappear.

  • How does a coral reef form?

Coral reefs are natural structures essentially built by hard coral colonies. Each coral is an invertebrate animal constituted of polyps. A polyp is an organism made of a mouth, stomach, wall and tentacles used for feeding and defense. Most of the corals are made of hundreds of those polyps, each genetically identical. Each polyp secrete its own exoskeleton made of calcium carbonate. Thus, hard coral species build reefs with the slow accumulation of these calcareous skeletons. Corals are furthermore considered as one of the biggest natural well of carbon on our planet.

The above video shows detailed and close-up shots of coral polyps feeding.

  • Why are coral reefs important?

Coral reefs have among the richest biodiversity on the planet, and provide ecological niches to numerous animals that find protection and food within the reef. According to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration(NOAA),more than 25% of the world’s marine biodiversity is found around coral reefs, as well as over 4,000 different species of fish.

Corals are also a necessity for many coastal countries. Coral reefs offer a natural barrier against erosion and flooding following strong weather events (hurricanes or typhoons, for example). Furthermore, coral reefs are of an invaluable economical importance, and supply essential goods and services such as food, raw material, water filtration, and tourism. Over 30 million people depend exclusively on those reefs for their subsistence and housing, particularly the populations living on coral islands or atolls (Wilkinson 2008).

It is difficult to calculate the exact monetary value of such an ecosystem, but according to estimations from experts at Diversitas in 2009, the goods and services supplied by coral refs have an average annual value of about $172 billion.

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  • How are coral reefs threatened?

Corals are very sensitive animals, and do not tolerate big changes in their environmental conditions. They now have faced for multiple years various threats, such as overfishing, pollution, bottom trawling, warming sea surface temperatures, or ocean acidification.

It is possible that by the middle of the century, corals become incapable of surviving in numerous regions of the world due to ocean acidification, and that their dissolution will be faster than their rebuilding(Guinotte and Fabry 2008). As I explained in the first article on this topic, the more acidity increases, the more energy is required to form a skeleton, and corals thus become more vulnerable.

In 2008, Clive Wilkinson explained that the world had already lost over 20% of coral reefs. In 2011, a report from the World Resources Institute indicated that 75% of coral reefs were at risk of entirely disappearing. In July 2015, a team of international scientists lead by Dr. Jean-Pierre Gattuso of the Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche published a worrying studyon the future of our oceans. If we continue with the ‘business as usual’ approach and if the CO2 emissions increase at the same rate, we can expect irreversible consequences on the marine ecosystems.

Without corals, the marine biodiversity will sharply decrease, as it will equal a huge loss of habitat, food and protection for many species. Moreover, the sectors of tourism and fisheries in numerous local and national economies will highly suffer from the disappearance of coral reefs. Finally, coastal regions will inevitably face increased beach erosion,floods, and damages in towns located close to the oceans.

  • What can we do?

All hope is not lost yet. A team of scientist has already shown that some corals are capable of regulating their own pH levels internally(McCulloch et al. 2012). Moreover, scientists in many countries, like Ken Nedimyer in Florida, have successfully established coral nurseries to grow endangered coral species (see photo), and to insure the presence of numerous and different genotypes within the reef. These corals are then transplanted onto older reef sites, previously destroyed by storms, diseases or bleaching events, so the reef can rebuild. Additionally, scientific research on corals and their resistance to such events continues across the world.

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(Photo of Acropora cervicornis trees at the CRF coral nursery down in the Florida Keys. Photo by Allan Bright)

In France, l’Initiative française pour les récifs coralliens (IFRECOR), dependent on the Ministère de l’Ecologie, has been committed since 1999 to ensure the protection and sustainable management of coral reefs in French waters.

Everything in our environment is connected, and it is therefore possible to help coral reefs indirectly in our daily life. Don’t hesitate to check out the Lemonsea article on 5 things you can do to fight ocean acidification. No action is too small.

This article was originally published in French on the blog Ocean pour le Climat for Le Monde: Les impacts de l’acidification des océans sur les récifs coralliens.

A few days ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed to downgrade the manatee from an ‘endangered’ to ‘threatened’ status under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Indeed, the West Indian manatees populations have been steadily increasing, and the agency has stated that the species should no longer be considered endangered.

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(Photo by David Roche)

Endangered listing means that a species is “currently in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range”, while a threatened listing states that the species “is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future.”

This marine mammal was originally listed under the ESA about 50 years ago, as the manatee population was on the brink of extinction due to overhunting and collisions with boats. During the first aerial surveys in the 1990s, officials counted close to 1,300 manatees in Florida. Nowadays, officials have counted over 6,300 in Florida alone, and scientists estimate that 13,000 manatees live in their natural range of the Caribbean and the northern coasts of Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil.

The manatees will remain protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act,which makes it illegal to harass, feed, hunt, capture, collect, or kill any marine mammal or part of a marine mammal, and which improves the response rate to strandings or mortality events.

I think this is very encouraging to see that the efforts triggered by the ESA listing have worked, and could work for many other species. I have also read that the agency has guaranteed this would not dismantle slow-speed zones or lessen other protections for the species. This change only reflects the improvements in the population numbers in recent years. 

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(Photo by me or one of my coworkers)

Manatee conservation groups are, however, not thrilled about this proposed downgrading in the ESA listing, and call this decision a misguided and premature one. Dr. Katie Tripp, director of science and conservation for the Maitland, Florida-based Save the Manatee Club, has warned that declassification may potentially lead to undoing all of the good that protection efforts have achieved so far. Tripp also argues that many other threats the manatees population face have not been reduced enough to guarantee the welfare of manatee populations, such as pollution and increased human interaction.

For now, this proposed re-listing is open for public comments until April 7th. 

When people hear ocean pollution, they immediately think of the visible ones like plastic pollution, oil spills or sewage run-offs. But sound pollution, this invisible threat, is just as devastating to numerous marine animals, especially whales. Remember ‘The Silent World’ from Jacques Cousteau? Well, our oceans aren’t so silent anymore.

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Historically, noise levels in the oceans were low enough that whales were able to use their sonar to communicate with each other or to hunt for food. Increased ship traffic, acoustical seismic testing for oil exploration, the use of military sonar, and even small boats in high concentrations have all contributed to the growing sound pollution in the oceans. 

Sound travels farther and about five times faster in water than in air. All these high intensity sounds also travel at a higher energy level so they are louder than they would be above the surface. This increased cacophony has made the use of sonar, echolocation and underwater communication between whales extremely difficult. Imagine basically walking around on the airport runway with airplanes landing and taking off every minute or so trying to have a conversation with a friend….except that it’s even louder, and it never stops. 

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(Source)

Susan Parks, a biology professor at Syracuse University, compared right whale calls recorded off Martha’s Vineyard in 1956 and off Argentina in the 1977, with those in the North Atlantic in 2000. Parks and her team were astonished with the results. They discovered that North Atlantic right whales actually shifted their calls up an entire octave over the past half century in an attempt to be heard over the unending and increasing low-frequency sounds of commercial shipping. Furthermore, right whale songs used to carry off 20 to 100 miles, but now those calls travel only five miles or so. 

Another interesting tidbit of Park’s research came after 9/11. With the commotions and confusion following the attacks, ship traffic drastically dropped for a while. Her team continued recording whale calls during that time, and they could not believe what they heard. Actually, they didn’t hear much. The acoustic fog that had settled on the oceans for decades had suddenly lifted. Furthermore, they analyzed stress hormones found in collected whale poop, and they found that they had considerably dropped. It was obvious that during that brief period of time, whales had finally relaxed. 

If whales can’t hear each other as well, they need to spend more time and energy moving around and travelling to ‘quieter’ places in the oceans in order to feed or mate. This seems small, but a prolonged exposure to excessive noise can lead to permanent behavioral changes and thus a long-term impact on population numbers and mortality rates. Additionally, loud sounds have direct impacts on whale hearing, stress levels as we have seen above, and in some extreme cases may cause internal bleeding and death. 

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(Source: National Geographic. Click for full size.)

Astudy published in 2014 in the journal PLOS One found that manmade noise pollution can literally make whales go insane. Moreover, scientists have also found that beaked whales are extremely sensitive to sound pollution. They tend to dive too deep when they hear loud noises, then resurface too quickly and can die from the bends. Other studies have blamed military sonar and mapping sonar by oil companies for mass strandings of marine mammals.

What can we do about it? Governments are slowly starting to become conscious of the problem, and some are trying to slow ships down or to re-direct traffic to areas not ecologically significant to marine mammals, but of course this comes with a lot of opposition from the companies, as even a detour of five miles off course can increase costs and time. Many NGOs like Oceana and Greenpeace are also campaigning against the use of seismic blasts for exploration drilling. Technologies are also being developed to drastically reduce the noise from ships and geological surveying. We still need to continue raising awareness on the problem so further political action can occur and some international standards can be set.

You can check out this interesting interview with Christopher Clark, a prominent bioacoustics researcher. Clark goes into more details about seismic blasts and the precise impacts noise pollution may have on whale populations. It’s a great read.

Look at this cute little googly-eyed stubby squid, and enjoy the nerdy excitement of the scientists onboard the Nautilus. 

This little guy is a Rossia Pacifica and is a species of bobtail squid. This species inhabits the north Pacific, between Japan and Southern California. It usually rests on the seabed semi-buried in soft sediment during the day as it is nocturnal. At maturity, stubby squids grow to about 6cm long and live for only two years as both male and female die after mating. This one was spotted at 900m deep. 

The video was shot by a remotely-operated submersible by researchers aboard the E/V Nautilus, a vessel exploring areas of the ocean off the shore of California. The team uses remotely operated vehicles to film the ocean floor. They are the same guys who have previously stumbled on a very curious sperm whale a few months ago

Check out their YouTube account full of the cool encounters they witness during the expedition (seriously, do it. I’ve been sucked in for the past 2 hours)!

In a news release earlier this month, the IUCN revealed that increasing anthropogenic pressures (such as fishing and boat strikes) have caused the rapid decline of whale shark populations and that they should now be considered as endangered. 

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TheInternational Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the world’s main authority on the conservation status of species. The IUCN Red List evaluates the extinction risk of thousands of species based on a precise set of criteria, and the resulting evaluation aims to convey the urgency of conservation of a species to the public and policy makers.

Previously, whale sharks were ‘vulnerable’ to extinction, but their status has now been updated to ‘endangered.’ Their numbers have more than halved over the last 75 years as these sharks continue to be fished and killed by ship propellers.

Dr. Simon Pierce and Dr. Brad Norman, two prominent whale shark scientists have spent decades studying the animals and have co-authored the assessment that led to IUCN’s update.

“In our recent assessment, it was established that numbers have decreased more than 50 per cent in three generations – which we estimate to be about 75 years,” Norman explained. “The numbers on a global scale are really concerning.”

The main stressor to these gentle giants is the intense fishing pressure in several countries, including China and Oman, especially for shark-fin soup. Some other nations such as India, the Philippines and Taiwan have started implementing conservation plans and have ended large-scale fishing of whale sharks. While these efforts are admirable, it is now really important to push for more regional protection in these countries and to push other countries to try to save this species.

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Whale sharks have been hard to study and to keep track off as they are quite cryptic and disappear into the open ocean fairly quickly. However with the use of modern technology and tagging devices, it has become a lot easier to follow them, collect information on them, but also to realize what kind of threats they are facing. 

The species is just one step away from being critically endangered, an IUCN listing that is very hard to come back from.

We cannot sit back and fail to implement direct actions to minimize threats facing whale sharks at the global scale,saidNorman,“It is clear that this species is in trouble.”

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Tonight’s line-up:

  • Tiger Beach (8/7c)

Dr. Neil Hammerschlag is the world’s leading tiger shark expert. Now, he’s on a quest to answer what he calls the trifecta of tiger shark science: where do these giant sharks mate, where do the pregnant females gestate, and where do they give birth? He hopes to find answers by tagging and tracking 40 individuals across a shallow area off the Bahamas called Tiger Beach. Second only to great whites, the tiger shark’s killing power and voracious appetite is legendary - and Neil has to deal with some aggressive sharks while on expedition.

  • The Return of Monster Mako (9/8c)

Professional shark tagger Keith Poe, and marine biologists Greg Stunz, Matt Ajemain and their team use state-of-the-art technology to try to document a live-predation of a thousand-pound mako shark – what fishermen call a “grander.” Granders are enormous makos that make a kind of transformation when they reach 10 feet and 1000 pounds - they become more secretive and begin to hunt bigger prey, like seals. And they’re hard to find on the East Coast - until Joe Romeiro and team jump in the water after dark and come face to face with them.

  • Isle of Jaws (10/9c)

In 2016, award-winning shark cinematographer Andy Casagrande discovered that great white sharks had strangely and completely disappeared from the Neptune Islands off South Australia. Where did the sharks go? Searching west along the known great white migration route, he stumbles upon an incredible discovery - a concentration of all male great white sharks off an uncharted island. Andy calls in marine biologist Dr. Jonathan Werry, and together they get up close and personal with a dozen large great whites in the hopes of solving two of the most closely guarded of all the great white’s secrets… where they mate and where they have their young. Within this program, viewers will be able to immerse themselves into the adventure with virtual reality by using the DiscoveryVR app.

Check out the full TV Schedule here.

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Finding Dory, the sequel to Finding Nemo, is coming out today, June 17th 2016. A few years ago, Finding Nemo was such a massive success that it drove demand for pet clownfish through the roof, and resulted in hurting the wild population, instead of fostering an appreciation for marine animals in their natural habitats. Over 90% of the clownfish sold came from the big, blue sea! Let’s avoid doing the exact same thing with Dory, shall we?

The case of Dory, or the case of blue tangs, is a bit different from clownfish. A “Finding Nemo effect” and a similar pet-trade boom could have catastrophic results for this species.

First of all, blue tangs aren’t bred in captivity. Blue tangs are pelagic spawners, meaning that they need sufficient space to breed and mate in mid-water columns. Once the eggs are hatched in captivity, it is extremely difficult to keep them alive. This means that every blue tang you will see in tanks or at the pet store has been taken from the wild. 

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Second of all, chances are they were taken illegally.Regulations and their enforcement vary from country to country, but live saltwater fish like Dory are too often illegally collected using sodium cyanide as a liquid stun gun. For clownfish, scientists have witnessed local extinctions in areas they were collected in, and to the destruction of reefs and other species with this method.

Moreover, very little is actually known about the species. Subsequently, researchers don’t know if the blue tang population would be able to withstand increased demand after the movie release.

Behavioral ecologist Culum Brown works on fish cognition and welfare, and he reveals what is known about the species in an interview with NPR:

“You’ll be shocked to discover that we actually know very little about cognition in blue tangs. Correction … make that nothing. But that is true for the vast majority of the 32+ thousand species of fish out there.

"We know that their skin reflects light at 490nm (deep blue) and they tend to get lighter at night (this is under hormone control). They have very sharp spines on either side of their tail which erect when [the fish are] frightened. They have a huge distribution (Indo-Pacific) but are under threat from illegal collection. They graze algae on coral reefs, which is a very important job because it prevents the corals from being over-grown.”

So what can you do to save Nemo and Dory?

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If you must have a clownfish in your tank, make sure it was bred sustainably in captivity and not taken from the wild. As for having a Dory, you get it, it’s a big no-no. Keep Dory on the reef.

The aquarium industry harvests more than 1 million clownfish from their natural habitats every year so they can be sold as pets. This overharvesting, along with other stressors like global warming, is likely leading to the depletion of clownfish populations in places like the Philippines and the Great Barrier Reef.

Captive breeding has proved to be a sustainable alternative that can meet the demands for ornamental fish like Nemo, without hurting the reef’s populations. Tank Watchis also an app that helps you identify the captive-bred (good) from the wild-caught (bad) fish. 

While you go out and see this movie over the weekend, remember to educate yourself on the many species represented (including a whale shark and a beluga whale!). Many of them are under some sort of threat in the wild. All of these species are better off out in the sea, so if you fall in love with one of them and instead of taking Dory out of the ocean, I hope you moviegoers will support research, education and conservation!

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We all know that sunscreen is a must when going out in the sun if we don’t want to end up looking like a red lobster. But have you ever noticed that oily slick that appears around you when you go for a dip into the ocean? Have you ever wondered where all that sunscreen goes? As summer has arrived in the northern hemisphere, I figured now would be a good time to address this.

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(Photo from The Nature Conservancy’s Hawaii Marine Program)

It turns out that your sunscreen, specifically the chemical oxybenzone, may be contributing to the decaying health of the coral reefs according to a studyfirst published in October 2015 in the journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Oxybenzone causes endocrine disruption, DNA damage and death. It also exacerbates coral bleaching.

Now, you may think that just you and your sunscreen cannot possibly have an impact since the ocean is so big and all. However, somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 tons of sunscreen enters coral reef areas around the world each year, according to the U.S. National Park Service. 

That’s… a lot of sunscreen (and people), especially considering how little it takes to cause toxic effects. According to the study mentioned above, toxicity occurs at a concentration of 62 parts per trillion

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Measurements of oxybenzone in seawater within coral reefs and popular tourism areas in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands found concentrations ranging from 1.4 parts per million to 800 parts per trillion.That’s 12 times the concentrations needed to harm coral.

“The use of oxybenzone-containing products needs to be seriously deliberated in islands and areas where coral reef conservation is a critical issue,” says Craig Downs, one of the authors on the study. “We have lost at least 80 percent of the coral reefs in the Caribbean. Any small effort to reduce oxybenzone pollution could mean that a coral reef survives a long, hot summer, or that a degraded area recovers.”

Obviously, I am not telling you to stop using sunscreen! However, we must consider carefully what sunscreen we buy before swimming in the ocean. The National Park Services highly recommend the use of mineral sunscreens with titanium oxide or zinc oxide, as they have not been found to harm reefs. 

Sunscreen by itself is not destroying coral reefs around the world. However, it is one more threat down the list working against these animals: warming sea temperatures, pollution, nutrients run-off, overfishing… If we start adding together all these little things, they all reduce the resilience of coral reefs to withstand bigger things like bleaching and disease. 

We can do our part to help the corals by simply choosing oxybenzone-free products. I won’t get into that, but I have also read that oxybenzone is not very good for us humans either anyways.

Here are some of the brands I know of in the USA that do not contain oxybenzone: Stream2Sea,Badger Sunscreen,Cerave andSun Worshipper sunscreen. In France, I know of the brand Evoa. Either way, aim to purchase oxybenzone-free, organic and/or mineral sunscreens, rather than chemical sunscreens.

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