When male fish turn female!

Written by Oman Observer



In what can be termed as a perfect case of gender-bender among fish, biologists have found evidence of “feminisation” of male fish in the estuaries in the Basque coast of Spain. Pollutants acting as oestrogens are responsible for this phenomenon which, among other changes, is causing ovocytes — immature ova — to appear in male fish, biologists claimed. The acquisition of feminine features by male fish has been detected, to a greater or lesser extent in all the estuaries — not only in the characteristics of the gonads of the specimens analysed but also in various molecular markers.
“The results show that endocrine disruption is a phenomenon that has spread all over our estuaries, which means that, as has been detected in other countries, we have a problem with pollutants,” explained Miren P Cajaraville, Director of the group of Cell Biology in Environmental Toxicology at the University of the Basque Country. The team has conducted research using thick-lipped grey mullet and has analysed specimens in seven zones in coastal Spain — Arriluze, Gernika, Santurtzi, Plentzia, Ondarroa, Deba and Pasaia. The results of the research were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment and Marine Environmental Research. — IANS
Source:  http://main.omanobserver.om

Pollution is disrupting these fish and their genitals

by Nicholas Tufnell

Grey mullet fish have been caught exhibiting female gonads

Shutterstock

 

The gonads of thick-lipped grey mullets are becoming increasingly feminised in the estuaries of Spain's Basque Country, according to research carried out by members of the Cell Biology in Environmental Toxicology group from the University of the Basque Country. The cause of this feminisation is thought to be due to certain pollutants, which are increasing oestrogen levels in the fish.
The specimens tested came from six zones: Arriluze and Gernika in 2007 and 2008, and since then, Santurtzi, Plentzia, Ondarroa, Deba and Pasaia. Feminised gonads aren't the mullet's only problem -- the acquisition of feminine features has also been detected in various molecular markers.
According to the director of the research group, Miren P. Cajaraville, the results show that "endocrine disruption is a phenomenon that has spread all over our estuaries, which means that, as has been detected in other countries, we have a problem with pollutants".
The source of these pollutants can be found in products many of us use every day, including contraceptive pills, perfumes, detergents and pesticides. The chemicals inside these products react with the fish, causing endocrine disruption, which can throw some fish hormones into disarray. There is very little known about the full effect of these pollutants as they have only recently appeared in the ecosystem.
According to Cajaraville, "our discoveries are significant, because they enable us to know how far these pollutants have spread in our estuaries and rivers and what effects they have; that way, we will be able to adopt methods to prevent them reaching our waters, like legal regulations governing their use."
The pollutants, it is thought, have started to appear in these estuaries as a result of industrial farming and through cleaning systems in wastewater treatment plants. "Our main hypothesis," says Cajaraville of the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve, "is that they come from the water treatment plant. It was the first place we studied, and continues to be, by far, responsible for the highest percentage of recently appearing pollutants."
 The results of the research have been published in two papers, one in the journal of Science of the Total Environment and the other in the journal of Marine Environmental Research.
Source:  http://www.wired.co.uk

Giant Cambrian shrimp fossils discovered in Northern Greenland

Both Tamisocaris and its cousin had compound eyes that would later be a defining characteristic of many insects, and also a circular mouth.

 

Science Recorder | James Sullivan | Thursday, March 27, 2014

On Wednesday, paleontologists announced the discovery of a strange sea creature that swam the oceans over 520 million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion, when a stunning array of diversity first appeared on the Earth. The newly discovered creature, a small filter feeding arthropod called Tamisocaris, reached 28 inches long. It is a distant cousin of the famous Anomalocaris, which may have been one of the world’s oldest apex predators, and whose modern day descendants include centipedes.  Although both the Tamisocaris and Anomalocaris are both members of the classification group that includes crustaceans, insects, and arachnids, nothing quite like the Tamisocaris, which was first found in a Greenland shale bed back in 2009, is alive today.
According to the leader of the study, paleontologist Jakob Vinther from Britain’s University of Bristol, the Tamisocaris was one of the largest creatures alive in the Cambrian, making it what Vinther referred to as a “gentle giant.” Although it’s not the same as a whale or a basking shark, it filled a similar ecological role at the time – using comb-like bristles on its appendages to trap bits of plankton and zooplankton – small plants and animals that it would eat, sucking the pieces into its mouth, rather than hunting and stalking prey.
The Anomalocaris possessed a similar pair of spiny, grasping appendages by its mouth, but with the purpose of catching prey, such as trilobites and small jawless fish. Both Tamisocaris and its cousin had compound eyes that would later be a defining characteristic of many insects, and also a circular mouth.  Although legless, it had a number of flaps down its back that made swimming movements possible.
What is significant is that the adaptation of filter feeding may suggest insights into how the similar development happened in whales, which are also plankton feeders, as well as crustaceans, some of which grow fairly large but feed primarily with spiny appendages like Tamilocaris. Both animals lived alongside primitive shellfish, jellyfish, and starfish, as well as jawless fish and a diverse array of trilobites, but the existence of Tamilocaris suggests a greater deal of diversity may have existed among arthropods than was previously thought and that the Cambrian age was home to a number of species that have yet to be discovered.

Source: http://www.sciencerecorder.com

Dead on arrival: Fishermen auction 5-metre-long whale shark

Published in The Express Tribune,

Residents gather around a whale shark after it was brought to Karachi’s fish harbour after it was enmeshed by a shrimp trawler in Balochistan. PHOTO: REUTERS

KARACHI: A five-metre-long whale shark, which was enmeshed by a shrimp trawler in Balochistan, was brought dead to Karachi on Wednesday, where its pieces were auctioned.
The female whale shark was tangled at Phor near Sonmiani. “Soon after its arrival, the fishermen cut it into pieces and auctioned it,” said World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-Pakistan director Rab Nawaz.
“This is an endangered species under the Convention of International Trade and Endangered Species,” he said. “But some cruel people killed it and sold its pieces at throwaway prices. There is no law in Pakistan to protect the shark and take action against the people who violate it.”

WWF-Pakistan has been advocating for the inclusion of this species in Schedule-I of the Wildlife Act of Sindh and Balochistan so that it’s enmeshing, trade and utilisation in any form can be banned. “India has already made the law but we are still waiting.”
The whale shark is found in tropical and subtropical waters of the ocean. It is commonly found in Pakistan. In fact, the first account of their organised fishing is from Pakistan. Luckily this fishery in Pakistan was stopped in the early 1970’s.
Muhammad Moazzam Khan, the former director-general of the fisheries department, stressed on the need to protect whale sharks because the Northern Arabian Sea, bordering the coast of Pakistan, is one of the world’s most important feeding, basking and breeding grounds for them. There are only a few places in the world, including Pakistan and India, where documented records of their breeding are available.
“The whale shark is not consumed in Pakistan but its meat is used for fish meal, the liver is used to extract oil for smearing the hull of fishing vessels and the fins are exported illegally to Hong Kong and China for shark fin soup,” he explained. The fishermen who sold its pieces on Wednesday hardly fetched more than Rs20,000. “This practice should be discouraged by the government.”
Umair Shahid, who has been working in marine fishing for a long time, suggested there should be collaboration between the academia, conservation organisations and fishermen to work towards the conservation of threatened animals. “There is no comprehensive research on biology and other aspects of marine animals,” he said. “All stakeholders should take the necessary steps to protect endangered animals whose population is seriously declining in Pakistan.” He suggested transforming fishing gears to improve fisheries’ management and complying with internationally binding agreements, which Pakistan is a signatory to.
“During the last eight months, four such entrapped whale sharks have been released by the fishermen following an awareness campaign started by WWF-Pakistan,” recalled Khan. “We demand the government to make strict laws and take action against those who kill such endangered species.”
Source: http://tribune.com.pk

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Gulf of Mexico fisheries are among the “dirtiest fisheries” in new report

The Gulf feels the impact of fishing policies.

Fishing frequently exacts some collateral damage—other marine wildlife besides the targeted fish species get ensnared in the fishnets and traps. This “bycatch,” as conservationists call it, is a bigger problem at some fisheries than others. Oceana, a marine-conservation nonprofit, has quantified the bycatch incidence fishery by fishery across the United States and identified the worst offenders in a new report, “Wasted Catch.”
The Gulf of Mexico is home to several of the “dirtiest fisheries,” the report’s unflattering name for fisheries where bycatch rates are highest. The number-one spot went to the Southeast Shrimp Trawl Fishery, which discards 229 million pounds of bycatch from its boats every year. The Southeast Snapper-Grouper Longline Fishery took second place with 6.4 million pounds of bycatch discarded annually. Another fishery that runs through the Gulf of Mexico and into the Atlantic and targets tuna, swordfish, and shark, is in eighth place.
Plenty of fisheries beyond the Gulf stand out for heavy bycatch, as well. The Northeast Bottom Trawl Fishery, with 50 million pounds of bycatch; the Gulf of Alaska Flatfish Trawl Fishery, with 34.5 million; and the Mid-Atlantic Bottom Trawl Fishery, with 9.4 million; also made the top-nine list.
The report relied on data from the National Bycatch Report, which the National Marine Fisheries Service published in September 2011 and then re-published with updated information in December 2013. Oceana analyzed the data from both editions.
Bycatch that is thrown back into the water is usually maimed or dead, and as such, fishing can put many more species in jeopardy than the ones that the fisheries are actively trying to catch. Sea turtles are frequent bycatch victims at the Gulf shrimp trawl fishery, for instance. Oceana’s report identifies that fishery as the cause of about 50,000 sea turtle deaths every year.
High bycatch also upsets food chains, as the wildlife that are killed include predators that keep other sea-faring populations in check. The Southeast Snapper-Grouper Longline Fishery’s discards, which amounted to 30% of all the fish that it had captured, included large numbers of bluefin tuna, swordfish, and sharks.
It is possible to reduce bycatch by using modified fishing equipment, or by restricting fishing activity during certain times of the year. Turtle-excluder devices, for example, can reduce turtle deaths when fitted onto shrimp trawls.
In February, Oceana and several allied environmental groups wrote to the National Marine Fisheries Service announcing that they intended to sue to require the Gulf of Mexico’s fisheries to install turtle-excluder devices onto their shrimp trawls. Meanwhile, the federal agency has proposed new regulations that would prohibit long-line fishing in certain areas of the Gulf in April and May, the months when bluefin tuna come to the Gulf to spawn.

Source: http://www.sciencerecorder.comwww.sciencerecorder.com

U.S. Commercial Fisheries Are Killing Lots Of Dolphins

 
(Willyam Bradberry/Shutterstock)

International ocean conservation organization Oceana, a vocal watchdog of our planet's aquatic life, has released its latest study on wasted catch in U.S. fisheries. The results aren't pretty. Wasted catch, or bycatch as it's also known, refers to non-target fish and wildlife inadvertently swept up mostly by open ocean trawl, longline and gillnet-type fisheries. The organization estimates that approximately 20% of the U.S. catch is thrown away each year.
"Hundreds of thousands of dolphins, whales, sharks, sea birds, sea turtles and fish needlessly die each year as a result of indiscriminate fishing gear," explains report author and Oceana marine scientist Amanda Keledjian. "It’s no wonder that bycatch is such a significant problem, with trawls as wide as football fields, longlines extending up to 50 miles with thousands of baited hooks and gillnets up to two miles long." Of the many fisheries operating, Oceana called out the top nine "dirty" fisheries, who all together threw away nearly 50% of their catch and were responsible for "more than 50 percent of all reported bycatch in the U.S."

 Click for larger version

Of those nine, three currently operate in New York waters, including two bottom trawl fisheries and one gillnet fishery. Northeast Bottom Trawl discards 35% of its catch, estimated at approximately 50 million pounds of fish annually. The Mid-Atlantic Bottom Trawl discards 33%, with an alleged 200 marine mammals and 350 sea turtles captured or killed annually. Finally, the New England & Mid-Atlantic Gillnet Fishery discards just 16% of its catch but was responsible for capturing 1,200 endangered sturgeon and more than 2,000 dolphins, porpoises and seals in one year.
“Anything can be bycatch,” says Oceana campaign director Dominique Cano-Stocco. “Whether it’s the thousands of sea turtles that are caught to bring you shrimp or the millions of pounds of cod and halibut that are thrown overboard after fishermen have reached their quota, bycatch is a waste of our ocean’s resources." The bycatch problem can be remedied if steps are taken to ban drift gillnets and other trawling methods or avoiding what the organization calls "bycatch hotspots."
Oceana is calling upon the federal government to institute counting methods, mandate cleaner fishing methods and cap wasted catch "using scientifically based limits."
Source:  http://gothamist.com