It is believe that fisheries and aquaculture will become very important resources in full filling nutritional requirements in the years to come. Apart from the well known impacts like coral bleaching and sea level rise, ocean warming and the associated effects of ocean acidification could have detrimental effects on the seafood resources we exploit. The effects lie beyond the thermal changes to distribution and reproduction. Kirsten Benkendorff and her team of marine ecologists at Southern Cross University in Australia are studying the effects of ocean warming and acidification on the nutritional properties of the predatory whelk, Dicathais orbita. Researchers ran 35-day trials and subjected the whelks to elevated temperature and acidity conditions like those predicted for the end of the century. Elevated temperatures significantly decreased protein levels and increased moisture content in shelf tissue. Lipid, protein, potassium, sulphur and phosphorous decreased also under elected temperatures. Additionally, elevated pCO2 levels significantly decreased lipid, protein and lead content.
Over 250,000 tones of muricid snails, the family to which D. orbita belongs, are harvested annually. These fundamental studies will spawn further work for more commercially important mollusks and crustaceans, to which are undoubtably also affected by ocean warming and acidification.
Please see the original publication Tate R et al. (2017) Ocean acidification and warming impacts the nutritional properties of the predatory whelk, Dicathais orbita. Ecology. 493: 7-13
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022098116302799
