“This work, along with others, is starting to show that there is a lot more biodiversity in the oceans then we previously thought,” said Joshua Drew, a marine conservation biologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and a member of the demoiselle study. “We really are in a situation where we are losing things before we even know they exist.”

The King demoiselle comes in a wide range of colours and patterns, but this alone is not enough to consider it several species. There are plenty of examples of fish that look very dissimilar from each other while still belonging to the same species.

However, what Dews’ colleagues discovered while doing field research in Southeast Asia was that the differences in appearance seemed to be linked to distinct geographical regions. In order to find out more, they decided to ship about a dozen King demoiselle samples to Drew, collected from three separate populations in Indonesia, the Philippines and the South China Sea.

In his laboratory, Drew analyzed the genetic composition of the samples, focusing on three different genes – one that has evolved slowly and two that have changed quickly over the years. What Drew found out was highly interesting: the two fast changing genes differed in the three geographical groups, but not the one slow changing one. This indicates that from an evolutionary perspective, the three groups diverged from each other quite recently.

“That means that this little fish we thought was broadly distributed has a mosaic of individual populations and each one is genetically distinct,” Drew explained. “That highlights how little we really know about how biodiversity on Earth is distributed.”

Earlier, scientists assumed that it was difficult for distinct populations of reef fish to form if they had small larvae easily caught by currents. It seemed reasonable to presume that larvae from many different geographical locations would intermingle with each other throughout the sea. New data, obtained from studies like the King demoiselle one, do however suggest that larvae often settle close to its point of origin.

The King demoiselle study will be published in the journal Coral Reefs.

http://springerlink.metapress.com/content/100407/?p=32f929fa7f60452da6d63226ec8898a6&pi=0

Carina Löfgren was on her way back to the beach when she encountered the dangerous jellyfish just a few meters from the shore.

“Carina was walking roughly one meter in front of me,” her husband Ronny Löfgren told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. “It wasn’t deep; the water barely reached my trunks. Suddenly she started screaming violently and grasp at her legs. It made us realise that it was some kind of stinging jellyfish. We tried to remove the tentacles from her. It took four to five seconds, then she collapsed.”

Carina was dragged out of the water and her brother, who used to work as an emergency first responder, administered first aid with heart compressions and mouth-to-mouth.

“He administered CPR for four or five minutes”, Ronny Löfgren explained. “Then I replaced him. But I instantly felt that she was lifeless. She died in my arms.”

The ambulance reached the beach after 15 minutes. According to Ronny Löfgren they immediately understood that they could do nothing to help Carina at this point.

“One of them said ‘ah, jellyfish’ and shook his head. They tried to revive her for half a minute. Then they shook their heads again.”

Box Jellyfish

Box jellyfish are a group of invertebrates belonging to the class Cubozoa. One of the most dangerous members of this group is Chironex fleckeri, also known as the Sea wasp. Chironex fleckeri is found in the oceans of Australia and southeastern Asia and an average specimen contains enough venom to kill 60 adult humans.

“They can be very small and transparent which makes them difficult to spot”, says Swedish marine biologist Lars Hernroth. “Heart failure is the most common cause of death when stung by a sea wasp. In most cases, it happens extremely fast. The overall health condition of the victim will in part determine the victims’ resilience towards the venom.”

Hernroth believes it is important to ask local tourist information agencies about the jellyfish situation in the area. Some popular holiday destinations places nets in the water to catch jellyfish, but it will only work against the big ones – the small ones will slip through.

Swimmers stung by Chironex fleckeri often fail to make it back to the shore; they die from drowning or cardiac arrest within minutes. If a person does make it back he or she will be in need of immediate treatment, and even with proper treatment, fatalities are common. While administering first aid, make sure that some calls an ambulance. Chironex fleckeri antivenom does exist, but must be administered quickly. In areas where Chironex fleckeri is common, ambulances often carry antivenom – at least in developed parts of the world.

If you’re into interior design, you have probably encountered the online tools that allow you to try different types of interior designs online without breaking a sweat. With a simple drag and click you can move around heavy sofas, rearrange book shelves and try out 54 different types of rug.

But did you know that there is a very similar tool has been created for all the aquarium aficionados out there: the AquaSketcher. You start out by picking out an item, e.g. a plant, piece of wood or nice rock from a list, and then proceed to choose its colour, dimensions etc. Last but not least, you start placing your objects in the aquarium to see how well they go together. You can naturally go back and change things, gradually building towards the perfect setup.

Naturally, a tool like this has its limitations. Just as the tools developed for interior design it will only give you a hint about the final results, and it will naturally be impossible to find a plant, root or rock that looks exactly as in the picture. Also, you have to keep in mind that factors such as light play no small part in how we perceive a room or an aquarium. In an aquarium, water movements will also be of importance. Perhaps a later version of the AquaSketcher will allow you turn on your imaginary filter system to see the plants move with the current?

If you want to give the AquaSketcher a try you can find it here:

The virus was identified by researchers at the Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and the finding has also been confirmed by the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle.

The virus causes viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) in fish and can result in significant losses in wild and captive raised fish populations.

“VHS is one of the most important diseases of finfish,” says James Winton, a VHSV expert working at the Western Fisheries Research Center. “It not only affects the health and well-being of populations of several important native fish species, but it can also impact trade, and, should it spread into the U.S. aquaculture industry, could do substantial damage as happened in Europe and parts of Japan.”

The infection is one of only nine fish diseases that must be reported to the World Organization for Animal Health. Until 2005 it was not known to exist in the Great Lake system but that year it caused several massive die-offs. Since then the virus has been detected in all of the Great Lakes except Lake Superior, and was for instance the culprit when 40,000 freshwater drums died in Lake Ontario over the course of just four days. In addition to the Great Lakes, the virus is also present in the rivers of Niagara and St. Lawrence and in inland lakes in New York, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Previous genetic research carried out by scientists in Canada and the United States show that the VHS virus was probably introduced to the Great Lakes during the last 5-10 years.

Experts now fear that current federal and state restrictions placed upon the movement of fish and fish products won’t be enough to prevent the virus from reaching native fish in the 31 states of the Mississippi River basin.

The virus can spread through water transfer and through the consumption of infected eggs or fish, which means that baitfish can introduce the fish to new localities. A fish that manages to survive the disease can become a lifelong carrier of the virus, excreting it through its urine and sperm or ovarian fluids. In Europe, the gray heron is known to spread the virus without being infected; the virus appears to remain inactive as long as it resides in the digestive tract of the bird.

Different strains with different properties

Historically, VHS was associated with Western Europe where it was documented as a pathogenic disease among cultured salmonids as early as the 1950s. In 1963, the viral cause of the disease was discovered by M. H. Jenson. Until late 1988, VHSv Type I was the only known strain of the disease and it appeared to be contained within freshwater fish farms in continental Europe, affecting primarily rainbow trout and only occasionally brown trout and pike.

In 1988 the first case of VHS was reported from the United States and the culprit turned out to be a distinct, more marine-stable strain of VHSv than the European variant. The virus was present in salmon returning to Washington State from the Pacific Ocean. Today, we know of four different main strains and except for type IV, all of them are endemic to Europe.

The type IV virus can be divided into two subtypes: IV-a and IV-b. IV-a has been reported from marine fish living in the Northwest Pacific, along the North American north Atlantic coast, and along the shores of Japan and Korea. IV-b is the type causing problems for freshwater fish in the North American Great Lakes region.

The IV-b strain was first isolated from fish living off Canada’s Atlantic coast where it did not cause any high mortality rates. This strain is capable of infecting not only salmonids but a long row of warm-water freshwater species previously assumed to be resistant to VHS. The European strains are particularly deadly do rainbow trout, but the IV-b strain only have a mild affect on this species. It is on the other hand capable of killing fish such as chinook salmon, lake trout, steelhead trout, gobies, emerald shiners, yellow perch, walleye, muskies and whitefish.

Roughly half of the tropical fish sold in the United States is raised in Florida, a state heavily dependant on its warm climate. The fist fish farmers showed up here as early as the 1930s when it was still possible to purchase cheap land around Miami, but nowadays a majority of the fish Florida farms is found in the lake-rich part of Florida located between Tampa and Orlando. Up until a few years ago, the number one cargo shipment out of Tampa International Airport was tropical fish.

Fish native to tropical parts of the world normally find it difficult to stay alive if the water temperature drops below 60 degrees F (15 degrees C) and even temperatures around 70 degrees F (20 degrees C) may have a detrimental effect on their immune system. It is therefore easy to imagine what happens if the air temperature suddenly drops below the freezing point - as it has done in Florida this winter.

And even in situations where the cold isn’t severe enough to instantly kill the fish it can send them into a sedentary state where they fail to hide from predators like hungry birds, especially if living in unplanted ponds offering few places to hide. Many fish eating birds have been forced to see their normal hunting grounds being sealed off by ice and fish farms struggling to keep the water temperature up constitute a highly appealing alternative when the hunger sets in.

In desperate attempts to save their fish from freezing to death or being eaten by predators, Florida farmers have been covering their ponds with plastic sheets and pumped in warm water. When the cold turned out to be more than just a short dip, those who could scrambled to get as many fish as possible indoors. Many farmers have been forced to prioritize older fish close to the size needed for shipping, leaving younger fry behind to die.

Farmers that have lost more than 50 percent of their fish are entitled to financial relief from the Department of Agriculture if they file a crop insurance claim.

Not really a worm
Shipworms are not actually worms but saltwater clams with much reduced shells. They are notorious for borrowing into and gradually destroying wooden structures in saltwater; earning the nickname “termites of the sea”.

There are 65 different know species of shipworm but Teredo navalis is the only one currently known to spread into the Baltic Sea via the Great Belt. Teredo navalis forms up to 30 cm deep tunnels in submerged wood and is difficult to detect since it remains hidden inside the tunnel. It has a life expectancy of 3-4 years.

Teredo navalis can survive in a salinity of 4-6 practical salinity unit (PSU) for short periods of time but can not reproduce unless the salinity is at least 8 PSU. The salinity of the Baltic Sea decrease the further north you get with the Stockholm Archipelago sporting an average salinity of roughly 5 PSU.

The shipworm is capable of completely destroying large maritime archaeological finds in only 10 years, and while it has avoided the Baltic Sea in the past, since it does not do well in low salinity water, it can now be spotted along both the Danish and German Baltic Sea coasts.

14th century shipwrecks under attack

“Wrecks that have been resting unharmed since the 14th century have now been attacked off the coast of Rügen in Germany, and we are also noticing attacks along the Swedish coast, including destruction of the Ribersborg cold bath house in Malmö,” says Christin Appelqvist, doctoral student at the Department of Marine Ecology, University of Gothenburg.

Appelqvist and her colleagues suspect that increased water temperatures may be helping the shipworm to tolerate a lower salinity.

One of the objectives of project WreckProtect is to develop methods for the preservation and protection of shipwrecks. It might for instance be possible to cover the wrecks with geotextile and bottom sediment.

100,000 wrecks may be at risk
Thanks to the absence of Teredo navalis there is currently around 100,000 well preserved shipwrecks resting in the Baltic Sea, a true treasure for historians and archaeologists. If the shipworm continues to spread these ships may vanish before anyone has a chance to explore them.

“Around 100 wrecks are already infested in the Southern Baltic, but yet it hasn’t even spread past Falsterbo. We know it can survive the salinity of the Stockholm archipelago, although it needs water with higher salinity than that to be able to reproduce,” says Appelqvist.

* Christin Appelqvist, Department of Marine Ecology, University of Gothenburg
http://www.marecol.gu.se/Personal/Christin_Appelqvist/

* Jon Havenhand, Department of Marine Ecology, University of Gothenburg
http://www.tmbl.gu.se/staff/JonHavenhand.html

Picture credit: http://www.science.gu.se

“We’ve all been working to address marine debris in Hawai‘i in our own way for years. It’s great to have a plan that we can all contribute to and work together on to tackle marine debris in Hawaii,” said Marvin Heskett, member of the Surfrider Foundation’s Oahu Chapter.

The plan establishes a cooperative framework for marine debris activities and aims to reduce

• the current backlog of marine debris
• fishing gear and solid waste disposal at sea
• land-based debris in waterways
• the number of abandoned and derelict vessels

“For too long marine debris has marred the natural beauty of our ocean and threatened our marine ecosystem,” said Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii. “I have long championed a coordinated effort to mitigate the many tons of debris that suffocate our coral, kill our fish and aquatic mammals and blanket our coastlines. This is a critical issue for our state and I am proud that Hawaii is taking the lead in finding a solution to this global problem.”

The Marine Debris Program has been developed by NOOA in cooperation with Hawaiian governmental agencies, NGO’s, academia, and private business partners. The plan builds on ongoing and past marine debris community efforts.

You can find the plan here. The site also has a video for download.

Male Labroides dimidiatus cleaner fish punish females that bite instead of clean (thus driving off the bigger fish) but females never punish males for doing exactly the same thing.

The Bluestreak cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) lives on coral reefs where it feeds by removing parasites and dead tissue from the skin of larger fish. Most of the time the wrasse provides bigger fish with a valuable service, but sometimes the tasty mucus in front of the cleaner turns into an irresistible temptation, prompting the wrasse to bite off a mouthful. This is naturally not appreciated by the bigger fish and a cleaner wrasse who can’t control his or her urges will have to watch the big fish take off in a jiffy, taking all the nutritious parasites with it.

When a male fish notice a female fish scaring off the big fish they are cleaning together he will promptly punish her for her injudiciousness. This might seem altruistic, but the male fish is actually pissed off at her for making his dinner swim away.

“The male’s dinner leaves if the female cheats,” says Nichola Raihani from the The Zoological Society of London who has been studying Labroides dimidiatus together with research partner Redouan Bshary.

“By punishing cheating females, the males are not really sticking up for the clients but are making sure that they get a decent meal,” Raihani explains.

Raihani believes true altruism is rare.

“When you see something that looks like it’s altruistic, if you look hard enough, there’s normally going to be a benefit somewhere down the line for the person that’s doing that supposedly altruistic act,” she says.
Interestingly enough, a female fish that has to watch her dinner swim away because a male wrasse couldn’t leave the mucus alone never punishes the culprit.

“The males are less well behaved than the females a lot of the time but perhaps part of the reason the males are so likely to cheat is that females never punish males,” Dr Raihani told the Science podcast.

Males tend to be larger than females and this might be why the female finds it safer not to discipline him. All Bluestreak cleaner wrasses start out as females and in a group of 6-8 wrasses you will never find more than one male. If the male dies or is removed from the group, the strongest female will change into a male and take his place.

The wrasse study has been published in the journal Science.
You can download the podcast here: http://podcasts.aaas.org/science_podcast/SciencePodcast_100108.mp3

The new discovery is the result of a study* led by Mario Lebrato**, PhD student at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science. The work was done when he was at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) and affiliated with the University of Southampton’s School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES).

“I was definitely surprised by the magnitude of the values reported in this study, but [the study’s] approach seems sound, so the reported numbers are probably fairly accurate,” says palaeoceanographer Justin Ries of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ries also points out that these important creatures might be affected by ocean acidification.

“If the echinoderms end up being disproportionately susceptible to ocean acidification then it’s conceivable that the dissolving of echinoderm-derived sediments will be one of the earliest effects of ocean acidification on the global carbon cycle,” he explains. “In fact, maybe it already is.”
The body of an echinoderm consists of up to 80% calcium carbonate and according to the Lebrato study these hard-shelled animals collectively capture 100 billion tons of carbon each year.

“The realisation that these creatures represent such a significant part of the ocean carbon sink needs to be taken into account in computer models of the biological pump and its effect on global climate“, says Lebrato. “Our research highlights the poor understanding of large-scale carbon processes associated with calcifying animals such as echinoderms and tackles some of the uncertainties in the oceanic calcium carbonate budget. The scientific community needs to reconsider the role of benthic processes in the marine calcium carbonate cycle. This is a crucial but understudied compartment of the global marine carbon cycle, which has been of key importance throughout Earth history and it is still at present.”

The study has been published in the journal ESA Ecological Monographs.

* Mario Lebrato, Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez, Richard Feely, Dana Greeley, Daniel Jones, Nadia Suarez-Bosche, Richard Lampitt, Joan Cartes, Darryl Green, Belinda Alker (2009) Global contribution of echinoderms to the marine carbon cycle: a re-assessment of the oceanic CaCO3 budget and the benthic compartments. Ecological Monographs. doi: 10.1890/09-0553.

** mlebrato13 [at]googlemail.com