{"id":749,"date":"2020-10-30T10:46:43","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T10:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/?p=749"},"modified":"2020-10-30T10:49:30","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T10:49:30","slug":"are-there-always-more-fish-in-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/30\/are-there-always-more-fish-in-the-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Will there always be more fish in the sea?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Gray Whale – Photo by Cameron Venti<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In May of this \u2018exciting\u2019 year of 2020, it was widely reported that the Smooth Handfish (Sympterichthys unipennis<\/em>) was declared the first species of bony fish to go extinct in modern times. Without a doubt, it is sad that a creature described as having a \u2018punk rock hair-do\u2019 has been relegated to a single, discolored specimen on the shelf of a natural history museum discolored specimen<\/a> on the shelf of a natural history museum. However, it is also striking that this is the first member of one of the most diverse of all animal groups to go extinct in modern history. How can this be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The era in\nwhich we\u2019re currently living, called the \u2018anthropocene\u2019 due to the ubiquitous\neffects of human activity on the rest of the planet, is a period punctuated by\nextinction. Species have been going extinct faster in the last few thousand\nyears than they have any time since the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65\nmillion years ago (the \u2018K-T boundary\u2019 extinction event) (1<\/em>). Famous victims include the Dodo (Raphus cucullatus)<\/em> and the Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius)<\/em>, which vanished in the face of\nexpanding civilization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what happened\nin the ocean? We often hear stories of imposing fleets hunting down whales or\ncoldly harvesting ever last cod out of the sea to feed humanities insatiable\ngreed. So why don\u2019t hear of the Minke Whale (Balaenoptera spp.<\/em>) or the Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua<\/em>) going extinct? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The marine\nworld isn\u2019t completely lacking in species extinguished by the impact of\nhumankind. Take the Steller\u2019s Sea Cow (Hydrodamalis\ngigas<\/em>) for example; this massive dugong of\nthe cold North Pacific lasted a mere thirty years from when it was discovered\nbefore being harpooned out of existence by sailors and explorers in the late 18th<\/sup>\ncentury. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Artistic rendition of Steller’s Sea Cow feeding in a North Pacific kelp forest – Image by Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Fast-forward\ntwo hundred fifty years and we have the first declaration of a fish going\nextinct. What then makes marine species so special? Are they somehow\n\u2018extinction-resistant\u2019 or is something else going on? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer\nis, as usual, is not so simplistic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, we\nwithout a doubt know less about marine ecosystems compared to their terrestrial\ncounterparts. So due to the simple fact that the vast and voluminous ocean is a\nchallenging and resource-intensive place to monitor, species may have gone\nextinct without modern science ever even knowing they existed in the first\nplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second\nimportant factor is that the ocean is a highly interconnected system, which has\nallowed many marine species to develop extensive ranges covering hemispheres\nand in some cases nearly the entire ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirdly, humans live on land. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that human expansions, such as the arrival of humans in Australia some 65,000 years ago, directly sped up the rate of extinction in those places, either through hunting or habitat modification (1<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Extinct marsupial ‘lion’ (Thylacoleo carnifex<\/em>). One of many large land species to go extinct around the time of the arrival of humans to Australia ~65,000 years ago. – Image Dr. Anne Musser, Australian Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Until\nrelatively recently, most human resource extraction in the sea was limited to\nthe coast, and until the industrialization of whaling and sealing in the 19th<\/sup>\ncentury it was usually small in scale. Therefore, much of our impacts on marine\nspecies are relatively recent, compared to terrestrial species (2<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case\nof the Smooth Handfish, despite being reportedly common, it was coastal and\nrestricted to a specific reef habitat around Tasmania making its existence susceptible\nto sudden changes. The exact causes of this extinction are unknown, however it shares\nthe important similarity with many other extinct species of being limited to a\nsmall area or a specific, vulnerable habitat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although we\ndon\u2019t currently have evidence of any formerly widespread marine species going\nextinct in the Anthropocene, extirpations (local or regional extinctions) are\nknown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take the Gray\nWhale (Eschrichtius robustus<\/em>). Until the late 19th<\/sup>\ncentury, the Gray Whale existed throughout the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.\nDuring the period of industrial whaling, whalers took advantage of this\nspecies\u2019 habit of keeping close to the coast, especially during calving\n(birthing) season. By the early 20th<\/sup> century, the population of Gray\nWhales in the North Atlantic vanished, leaving only the Pacific whales to carry\nthe proverbial torch forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly,\nrecent archaeological evidence collected at ancient Roman fish processing sites\nin the south of modern-day Spain, suggests that the Roman fishing industry may\nhave in fact extirpated the eastern portion of the Atlantic Gray Whale\npopulation, which calved in the Mediterranean (3<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it\nappears that the cumulative effects on the once common Gray Whale have had\ntheir impact, with one local population disappearing, then another, until an\nentire ocean is devoid of a formerly common species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep-sea\nmining, long-distance fishing fleets, and trans-oceanic shipping are just a few\nof the faces of growing human endeavor in the global ocean (4<\/em>). Few places on our planet remain\noutside our realm of influence; so the warning of the Smooth Handfish seems to rings\nclear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many more will follow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Pievani, Telmo. “The sixth mass\nextinction: Anthropocene and the human impact on biodiversity.” Rendiconti\nLincei<\/em> 25.1 (2014): 85-93. <\/li>
  2. McCauley, Douglas J., et al. “Marine\ndefaunation: animal loss in the global ocean.” Science<\/em> 347.6219\n(2015).<\/li>
  3. Rodrigues, Ana SL, et al. “Forgotten\nMediterranean calving grounds of grey and North Atlantic right whales: evidence\nfrom Roman archaeological records.” Proceedings of the Royal\nSociety B: Biological Sciences<\/em> 285.1882 (2018): 20180961.<\/li>
  4. Halpern, Benjamin S., et\nal. “A\nglobal map of human impact on marine ecosystems.” science<\/em> 319.5865\n(2008): 948-952. <\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In May of this \u2018exciting\u2019 year of 2020, it was widely reported that the Smooth Handfish (Sympterichthys unipennis) was declared the first species of bony fish to go extinct in modern times. Without a doubt, it is sad that a creature described as having a \u2018punk rock hair-do\u2019 has been relegated to a single, discolored […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Martin Beal","author_link":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/author\/martin\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Blog<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"In May of this \u2018exciting\u2019 year of 2020, it was widely reported that the Smooth Handfish (Sympterichthys unipennis) was declared the first species of bony fish to go extinct in modern times. Without a doubt, it is sad that a creature described as having a \u2018punk rock hair-do\u2019 has been relegated to a single, discolored…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":766,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions\/766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}