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Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#11

Post by magneticnorth »

plank_time wrote: post #3

It’s obviously horrible, but it also means that it will allow other creatures to grow to fill that space. It’s like a forest fire. Sure the devastation is bad but there’s also renewal afterwards. It’s not like it will remain barren forever.

The difference is that the local ecosystem has evolved for forest fires; this is a massively destabilizing event where we can't predict what the "renewal" will look like and what species will go extinct in the meantime, or how polluted the water will end up being "normally" without the mussel population to keep things in check.

And I don't think the article is implying that the oceans will be barren forever, but that things are changing rapidly, unpredictably, and to an extreme degree that we have no precedent for.

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#12

Post by plank_time »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #9
plank_time wrote: post #3

It’s obviously horrible, but it also means that it will allow other creatures to grow to fill that space. It’s like a forest fire. Sure the devastation is bad but there’s also renewal afterwards. It’s not like it will remain barren forever.

It’s not that simple. As the article mentions, if weather continues to warm and these events become more common, we could end up with seasonal die outs of intertidal species. It’s not immediately evident from that statement, but that would completely transform the biodiversity of the coastline. Currently it’s one of vast abundance, but this transformation would very likely reduce that abundance and its diversity due…

If the waters heat up are you saying that no creatures will ever survive? That’s anti-science.

There are creatures around the world that thrive in warmer waters. The space will be reclaimed by other creatures that can survive in that environment. To think otherwise goes against basic science.

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#13

Post by JoeAltmaier »

plank_time wrote: post #10
dyeje wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How fast do these creatures reproduce? Are they going to generate billions in between now and the next hot season? How many more will die this hot season? Will even more die next hot season?

It’s not “hot season”. It was a historically abnormal heat wave. I lived in Vancouver. You don’t normally see temperatures like that. It doesn’t have to reproduce right away, that’s just unrealistic. But the larger amounts of free space will mean a land grab by the survivors. That’s how it works in nature. If the climate changes and the water heats up then the ecosystem will be replaced by those animals that would su…

Its also called "ecological collapse" when a place has catastrophic dieoff. It can take decades to recover, even with species that can survive in the new conditions.

(Meanwhile poor humans are trying to grow crops and raise animals. We may get very hungry, for decades)

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#14

Post by nautilius »

plank_time wrote: post #10
dyeje wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How fast do these creatures reproduce? Are they going to generate billions in between now and the next hot season? How many more will die this hot season? Will even more die next hot season?

It’s not “hot season”. It was a historically abnormal heat wave. I lived in Vancouver. You don’t normally see temperatures like that. It doesn’t have to reproduce right away, that’s just unrealistic. But the larger amounts of free space will mean a land grab by the survivors. That’s how it works in nature. If the climate changes and the water heats up then the ecosystem will be replaced by those animals that would su…

Yeah, the sun and Venus for example are overrun with life because there’s essentially no competition. That’s just science!

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#15

Post by inasio »

What does the number even mean, is it a lot, what is the denominator? Doing a rough back of the envelope calculation, looking at tidal areas, barnacles and other creatures there go from one milliliter to one centimeter square, meaning that the dieoff represented 1000 square meters to 10 hectares, which in all honesty is probably not a lot

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#16

Post by giantg2 »

midhhhthrow wrote: post #8

We need some frame of reference. How many creatures typically die every year? Without that the numbers are meaningless

Probably a lot more than that given the population densities suggested in the article.

"1 million mussels died in an area the size of a tennis court."

I think they usually measure small things in terms of mass. Here is a report just for Pugent Sound that suggests annualized reproduction of about 850,000 kg.

http://www.pacshell.org/carrying-capacity.asp

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#17

Post by wizzwizz4 »

plank_time wrote: post #12
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that simple. As the article mentions, if weather continues to warm and these events become more common, we could end up with seasonal die outs of intertidal species. It’s not immediately evident from that statement, but that would completely transform the biodiversity of the coastline. Currently it’s one of vast abundance, but this transformation would very likely reduce that abundance and its diversity due…

If the waters heat up are you saying that no creatures will ever survive? That’s anti-science. There are creatures around the world that thrive in warmer waters. The space will be reclaimed by other creatures that can survive in that environment. To think otherwise goes against basic science.

> If the waters heat up are you saying that no creatures will ever survive? That’s anti-science.

• Science is a way of finding out about the world, not a list of facts.

• No, actually. Rather, these creatures will die and we might lose entire species, significantly reducing biodiversity.

> The space will be reclaimed by other creatures that can survive in that environment. To think otherwise goes against basic science.

On an evolutionary timescale, something will fill the niche (if the environment remains constant enough for long enough… not looking likely, if you extrapolate from today), but science most certainly hasn't found that this happens with animals over the course of decades.

And you know what they say about basic biology…

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#19

Post by frankbreetz »

midhhhthrow wrote: post #8

We need some frame of reference. How many creatures typically die every year? Without that the numbers are meaningless

I agree:

>1 million mussels died in an area the size of a tennis court.

So, it could be as small as 1000 tennis courts or less then 6.5 acres.

Most likely it was spread over a larger area and this was a spot with a lot of life that got hit hard, but it is a frame of reference

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#20

Post by eloff »

plank_time wrote: post #12
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that simple. As the article mentions, if weather continues to warm and these events become more common, we could end up with seasonal die outs of intertidal species. It’s not immediately evident from that statement, but that would completely transform the biodiversity of the coastline. Currently it’s one of vast abundance, but this transformation would very likely reduce that abundance and its diversity due…

If the waters heat up are you saying that no creatures will ever survive? That’s anti-science. There are creatures around the world that thrive in warmer waters. The space will be reclaimed by other creatures that can survive in that environment. To think otherwise goes against basic science.

If you read the article it says in warmer places like Hong Kong the much of the intertidal life dies off every summer. So, yes, if it becomes a regular occurrence life could go from a year round habitat to a seasonal cycle.
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