Red royal crabs through acid trend in Bering Sea, the study suggests | Local news

Under the direction of Kodiak Lab Director Mike Litzow, the team of studies of three threes from 35 earlier research work and compared the effects of the pH value with low ocean heating, another Bering Sea trend, to the sharp, persistent decline in the Southeast Sea better To understand Red King Crab since 1980.

The legendary fishing of the Bering Sea culminated this year, from almost 60,000 tons to an average catch from an tenth of this size until 2010 and the final closure of fishing in 2021 to 2023.

While it has been proven that the ocean heating had catastrophic effects on the snow snow crab of Bering, its impact on the red royal crab is less known.

However, the acidification caused by a combination of environmental and artificial factors is a main suspect, especially in the cold water of the Bering Sea.

“Ocean acidification is another important potential stressor for crabs and other calcifying organisms. Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere have a significant increase in carbon absorption of the ocean and a shift of the marine carbonate system to a state with higher acidity and lower carbonate saturation in a cold water, and high -width water, which naturally is cold and are rich in carbon, like the Bering Sea, are particularly susceptible For the acidification, ”wrote Litzow's team.

The results showed that the ocean acidification can be partly to blame for the decline in the crabs. Increased acid explained a loss of the population from 1980 to 2023 and 45% by 45% since 2000.

This corresponds to the models that show the pH value in the Bering Sea and approach the levels that kill young royal crabs.

“These results are a shift in news from the research community,” said Darcy Dugan, the director of Alaska Ocean Secidification Network. “Before the study, the researchers believed that species in Alaska were probably affected, but we didn't have the data or analyzes to support them. Red King Crab is the first type in which we can see a correlation between the acid and the decline in a game population. “

But correlation is not a causality, noticed Litzow and his co -authors.

The next research steps include the confirmation of the Bergsee -Ozean acidification, the learning where in the Bristol Bay Juvenile Crab and check the pH values ​​there, and learn more about the reaction of young people to the pH value in the laboratory.