Lobster larvae: global warming could have bigger impact on their survival than ocean acidification

Gulf of Maine water warming: bigger danger to lobster larvae than ocean acidification?

On November 23, 2015   at an Ocean Acidification gathering of scientists, NGOs and state and municipal officials, held in Augusta Maine, meeting co-host Susie Arnold of the Island Institute, read a several  reports from researchers who couldn't attend that day. 

Among them, a report by Jes Waller a UMaine marine biology graduate student . Waller compared the effects on maine lobsters of increased acidification of seawater with the effects of increased tsewater tempersure. Here's the report  read by Susie Arnold  

The word from Bigelow Lab: Lobster larvae may be  affected more by ocean warming than by ocean acidification. Jes Waller, a UMaine grad student doing her research at Bigelow, compared the impacts of water warming and acidication on larval lobsters in the lab. 

This according to an update from her that was read out to the participants at the recent ocean acidification meeting in Augusta. Listen to that reading a 2min 37sec mp3 

Waller extrapolated environmental conditions out to the year 2100, apparently by increasing the amount of acid-forming carbon dioxide in some of the larvae's environment to 750ppm, and increasing water temperature to 66 degrees in others. 

Findings: 

(1) Boosted acidification DID NOT appear to affect the lobster larvae's metabolism nor their behavior.
(2) Elevated water temperature DID affect them.Their respiration sped up, their motions increased , and their development through life stages sped up. (They have 3 larval stages, and one postlarval stage before becoming juvenile then adult lobsters.)

Waller's paper will be published soon, but it suggests that what appears to prove lethal to these superhungry larvae is that the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water and  abundance of their tiny prey doesn't increase along with their needs. Not enough for their increased respiratory and food demands  So they strangle and starve.

A legislator raised the question: does elevated acidity have impacts on lobster larvae's prey? 

No one knew. Food for the little ones include animals like water fleas , zooplankton copepods, crustacean larvae, eggs of about any fish or shellfish; and on the salad side: diatoms, dinoflagellates & filamentous algae.

Which of those are acid-sensitive and which are warming sensitive - and which are both?

DMR scientist Carl Wilson on on lobsters and pesticides

Listen to Carl Wilson, Maine DMR lobster scientist give this presentation at the  4/18/14  meeting of the Maine Board of Pesticides Control. 

Broken into two  parts for ease of listening but also the full full 17 minutes

Carl Wilson Part 1 7minutes    Part 2 10 minutes

Carl  Wilson full presentation 17min

The Board has  committed to organizing pesticide sampling of intertidal areas of Penobscot Bay and Casco Bay.

Wilson had something to say about Maine lobsters and pesticides at the meeting Friday of the Maine Board of Pesticides Control. where a plan was agreed on to seek out and test pesticide hot spots in the intertidal shores of Penobscot Bay and Casco Bay, Click on the link to hear Dr Wilson and then his questioners 17minute 45second

Maine's new Lobster Marketing Collaborative meets with Maine legislature AUDIO

Will it help or hinder?

On March 26, 2014, representatives of Maine's new Lobster Marketing Collaborative gave a presentation the Maine Legislature's Marine Resources Committee on their plans for increasing Maine's market share in the seafood business.  Below listen to the Collaborative's executive director Marianne LaCroix  and the legislators discuss the many issues & expectation for the Collaborative. Remarkably, despite the considerable  challenge to the industry brought by the recent revelations of mercury in Penobscot River lobsters and the growing likelihood that furt investigations will show

1.  FULL Meeting 60 minutes  

2. Broken down  into @ 10 minute sections for ease of listening
* Part 1.  10 minutes      * Part 2.  11min     * Part 3.  9 min 34 sec 

* Part 4.  11 minutes     * Part 5. 9 minutes   * Part 6,   9 minutes

Monhegan - DMR explains legislation to let public recreationally lobster there

On January 19, 2012 the Maine Legislature's marine resources committee held a  hearing on LD 1709 "An Act To Amend the Limited-entry Program for Taking Lobsters in the Monhegan Lobster Conservation Area"  A governor's bill, and sponsored by Representative Windol Weaver

Listen to a 9 minute recording of  Diedre Gilbert of DMR explain the bill and be questioned about it by the committee

Maine faces new 'Closing of the Commons'. State's fishery agency "caught with its pants down."

Wind industry-backed  bill would stimulate massive leasing of Maine's fish-rich nearshore coastal waters to energy companies. 

Augusta. Beleaguered Maine scallopers, groundfishermen and shrimp harvesters face financial ruin as a tiny state public lands agency looks to become a political powerhouse by leasing Maine's commercial fishing grounds  out from under them. Meanwhile, the state's marine resoruce agency is poised to shrug.

On Thursday March 11th , LD 1810 "An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Governor's Ocean Energy Task Force"  will come before the Maine legislature's Utilities and Energy Committee.   

The bill would authorize the Maine Department of Conservation's  Submerged Lands Program to: 

 * Offer 30 year wind energy leases of the state's submerged marine lands to wind energy industry  investors. Lobster grounds, scalloping zones, shrimp and urchin grounds, and cod spawning areas would all be opened  to windmill companies leasing by the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, which stands to gain millions of dollars in fees leasing thousands of acres of nearshore Maine waters. 

* Ban commercial fishing within the wind leases of any gear that wind industry insurers deem risky to wind farm's underwater cables and  structures.

* Allow wind companies to use eminent domain on shoreline and inland property owners to allow the industry to cut powerline and tower rights of way through private land  to connect the offshore developers to the national grid.


* Allows nearshore windfarms to degrade local scenic values without penalty or need to compensate other users for lost value.

* Forbid coastal towns from assessing property taxes on wind turbines or related equipment and facilities in the municipalities' waters tha are "below the mean low-water line on waters subject to tidal influence."

* Forbid Maine citizens from filing appeals of Maine DEP windmill project decisions to the Maine Board of Environmental Protection.

* Forbid the Maine Board of Environmental Protection from assuming jurisdiction over Maine Department of Protection windmill applications.

FISHERMENS'  FORUM FURY
While Maine Marine Resources chief George Lapointe has expressed dismay about the plan, he wants fishermen to weather the corporate storm by giving up fishing grounds. At the March 6th wind energy Seminar at the  Maine Fishermen's  Forum,  Commissioner Lapointe  noted  that the ocean wind industry in Europe  bans fishermen operating their boats and gear inside their 'exclusion zones', 



 "If their windfarm is 5 miles  by 5 miles, no fishermen are allowed in there." he said.

" It's a huge issue for their insurance companies," Lapointe said .  "You've got the structures  generating the wind connected by cables and then to shore. The impacts of gear on that is clearly a big issue."  

He suggested the developers interested in Maine waters will require the same. "We know that is a component," he said. "Prepare to share."

"The key is how we share." he told the roomful of grim-faced fishermen at the wind industry seminar, but then admitted "there's no direct compensation" [in the bill].

While admitting it was "an accelerated process"  Lapointe insisted the bill is "still going to give time for people to work on real issues ."

The panelists repeatedly declined, however, to answer a key question that arose among the stunned fishing industry and conservationists there: while the wind industry spoke glowingly of the megawatts of energy for Maine and the world,  how many turbines does the industry plan to install in Maine  coastal waters  to reach the state goal of  300 megawatts by 2020?  How many towers to reach the bill's  5,000 megawatt goal for 2030?

Tellingly, neither Lapointe  nor any of the other wind industry and agency people speaking at the seminar received a single clap of applause following their presentations.  This break from traditional civility at the Forum  reflected the mood of  fishermen who had just been shone maps superimposing enormous windfarm leasing areas over their traditional  shrimp, scallop and groundfishing areas. "DMR was really caught with its pants down," one meeting participant said.

Fishermen and grassroots environmentalists have appealed to the Legislature to either send the bill over to the Marine Resources Committee  and/or hold the bill over to next year or both..


"Let's hope Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree and other coastal legislators  stand up for their constituents, " one coastal activist said. " The Department of Conservation certainly won't.
 
In the meantime, they said. priorities should include developing model ordinances for coastal towns and attempting to have Maine's commercial fishing fleets delineate windmill siting areas acceptable to their industry. If there are any.    
                                                

"Most disturbing to me" one scalloper noted, " is the section on the Renewable Ocean Energy Trust.  Proceeds from offshore leases go into this trust and then are disbursed to the DMR for research and monitoring.  This will be millions of dollars put into an organization that is not trust-worthy, unresponsive to the needs and desires of traditional coastal communities, and a bureaucratic mess largely under the influence of the Federal government and private non-profits."

Maine lobsters are fat & happy; but lobstermen not so much.

It was the best of times, the worst of times...

The cold economic equations continue to keep Maine lobster price low at the docks and lobstermen's wallets thin  As Maine Lobstermen's Association president Dave Cousens recently was quoted, his industry's  "financial business plan is based on a $4 [per pound] boat price. If we get below $4, it doesn't work...." 

 

Dave also noted that Maine's wild lobster community was thriving, though he would not say the same for Atlantic herring.

 

So let's consider this little animal we call "herring" is doing: Like all planktivores, stresses to the plankton , something we 'sapients' witlessly do all the time, there are less plankton eaters like herring. 

 

And this small fish is the primary food daily set before Maine lobsters in lobster "traps".  Traps? Think of the traps as soup kitchens, and millions of hungry lobsters - All you can eat!! -  filing in and out of millions of traps every day all day for much of the year.   

 

A  very fattening diet for lobsters to stay on, far divorced from their natural food of worms, plankton, mussels, clams. seaweed, other crustaceans  Herring in traps, regularly replaced, is manna from lobster heaven, raining down  .

But now the servings are about to stop being supersized, because the allowable  2010/2011 herring kill in the Gulf of Maine is being cut down to around 58 million individual herrings,  a way down from the 150 million or so herrings lawfully slain in the Gulf of Maine, in '06. The drop in herring feed will force millions of lobsters to tighten their carapaces and return to the hunting and gathering life.

(Photo courtesy National Geographic)