Sad news from the squid world. The awesome, though slightly terrifying, Humboldt squid is not going to do well as the oceans acidify.
Driven by increased emissions of carbon dioxide, the world’s oceans are likely to be increasingly acidic in the next 100 years. When researchers Brad Seibel and Rui Rosa exposed Humboldt (Dosidicus gigas) to these levels the animals got lazy, with metabolic rates down 31% and activity levels down 45%, they report in PNAS.
The squid spend their days in the deep ocean where there isn’t much oxygen, but they recover in well-oxygenated near-surface waters at night, explains University of Rhode Island researcher Seibel (press release). But low oxygen levels in deep waters could expand to shallower depths and increased temperatures and carbon dioxide levels of surface waters could mean trouble
“In the future, the habitable window between low oxygen at depth and acidified and warmer waters at the surface will grow narrower,” says Rosa (BBC). “The net result will be that the squid may become more susceptible to predators, less able to capture prey, or may be forced to migrate elsewhere, altering the oceanic food web.”
More squid news below
Build your own squid! The Te Papa museum has a colossal squid specimen on display and has released this fun game to tie in with it (hat tip PZ Myers, who currently has two squid attributed to him: Cutie Pie and Goodbert).
“You can make your own squid online, give it a name and set it free. And then you can come back and find it again…. I’ve just checked and there are now 422 named squid, and about 320 from New Zealand, all embarked on squiddy adventures,” said the museum on Saturday. Since then The Great Beyond’s very own squid – Squid ‘s In – has joined the menagerie (pictured left).
“It’s huge,” said a wide-eyed Inzimam Ali, seven, of Johnsonville, who pestered his parents for a week to visit the exhibition after seeing a billboard about it.
“It makes me hate the sea,” said Lena Riki, 20, of Upper Hutt, who took her children, three-year-old Iranui and 12-month-old Arapeta to the exhibition.
– Sunday Star Times looks at Te Papa museum’s latest attraction (although they confuse the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) with the giant squid (Architeuthis).
It’s not likely that a squid would be found — let alone survive — in the Rio Grande waterways or New Mexico, a land-locked state in the U.S.
What is likely, however, is finding bobtail squids in various stages of their life cycle in tanks in the basement of Foster Hall in Michele Nishiguchi’s laboratory at the New Mexico State University campus.
– La Cruces Sun News profiles squid specialist ‘Nish’
Nature feature on Humboldt from August: Neuroscience – The great squid hunt
More on the PNAS Humboldt paper
Squids in acid: What future oceans hold in store – New Scientist
Climate change may make Humboldt squid easy prey – Guardian
Future of Jumbo Squid Questioned – LiveScience
Image top: NOAA/MBARI 2006.