The Warty Frog-Fish "Antennarius maculatus"

This is a rather cool looking species of fish that is found often as a bottom dweller in indo-pacific waters. It is due to the fact that it is found in such deep waters that it is extremely rare to find. This species helps us show how by methods like bottom trawling, many species of fauna and flora found near the oceans floor may never be discovered. The common name for this fish is the Wart frog-fish and its taxonomic name is Antennarius maculatus. It can be found in a huge variety of colurs; however one common feature is that it is covered by warts. It is similar to other species with the common name frog-fish; however its distinguishing feature is its warts.

Links: www.deepseaimages.com

http://www.edge-of-reef.com/antennaridi/ANTAntennariusmaculatusen.htm

While researching for scientific articles to do with factors that effect marine mammals in the arctic for my major research paper, I came across a very interesting article on the predictions of the effect of climate change on arctic mammals. This to me caught my eye for two reasons; 1) I am very interested in general about global warming and its potential effects and 2) It was great to find a well written scientific article about something such as global warming and its impacts on some of my favorite things "Marine Mammals". This article also ties in many other factors that could affect the diversity and population numbers of marine mammal species such as, salinity, atmospheric pressure etc. Overall, I plan on heavilly using this article as one of my key resources for completing my major paper as I believe it greatly shows what maine mammals must deal witt in regards to climate change and its effects on the habitat and ecosystems of the marine life.

Bottom Trawling

Today while scouring the mail star newspaper I came accross an interesting article about industrial fishing and more specifically bottom trawling. This article focused on Marine biologist Boris Worm's opinion that a global marine apocalype will occur by 2050 if nothing is done to prevent it. One key point he makes is that we should be moving away from thing such as trawling as it not only destroys habitat but also promotes many by-catches in which many fish and marine life are killed without there actually being a use for them. This can occur from bottom trawling as because lots of fish and other things are trawled from the sea at such great depths, when brought to the surface its useless for fisherman to even thorow them back as they are already dead from the dramatic pressure differences from sea floor to the surface. Thus tons and tons of fish and other things go to waste everyday from these industrial methods. Dr. Worm does bring up one very easy solution in that people should return to hook and catch techniques. I believe that even though hook and catch techniques are not as efficient right now as the more high end industrial techniques, in the long run it will be more than worth it so that people of the future will not be left with a barren sea with no life.

Below is another great article I found while searching the web

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0216-05.htm

Just an Interesting Article

YELLOWKNIFE - Not long ago, John Robins quietly snapped up what could well be called one of Canada's hottest properties, even though it's so near the top of earth it's almost always frozen.
It's an uninhabited, 130-hectare island that he has all to himself, complete with thick-shouldered cliffs that look out on wild polar bears and some of earth's most pristine ocean waters.
And it only cost him $57, a modest price for a place that's been written up in many of the world's major papers: Hans Island.
''I'm thinking of starting a little tourist resort. You could be my first visitor,'' joked the Arctic prospector, speaking from his Vancouver office with Hunter Exploration Group.
''We're going to get some killer T-shirts made up, too: 'Hands off Hans Island','' he said, laughing.
Of course, Robins doesn't exactly own the island, a speck of barren land midway between Canada and Greenland that's just 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole and unremarkable save for one fact: both Denmark and Canada claim it as their own.
But on Feb. 1, Robins inked his own claim when Indian and Northern Affairs Canada awarded him a prospector's permit for the entire island. That gives him the exclusive right for five years to explore for treasure beneath its dark and windswept shores.
''Who knows, maybe there's a huge diamond mine lurking there,'' he said.
That may be a long shot but Robins, who obtained the permit through a paper application and has never been to Hans Island, is a serious prospector. In the past five years, his company has taken out permits on some 10 million hectares of Arctic land, including one plot that's now a prospective diamond mine.
He tacked on the Hans Island application to make both mischief and a statement.
''We weren't doing it completely on a lark. Part of it is the fact that it's a highly-contentious piece of ground, it was open and available for acquisition, so we did it,'' he said.
''But I feel that in the past our government has not done nearly enough to assert its sovereignty in the North. As Canadians, we tend too often to acquiesce to other countries' demands, and if you say something's yours then you better act like it's yours.''
Denmark, however, begs to differ.
''Our position on the sovereignty over the island is not changing,'' said Peter Taksoe-Jensen, the head of the legal service in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adding Robins's permit ''was no surprise for us,'' since Canada and Denmark have agreed to notify each other over anything related to the island.
''This is an issue that has proven that the new procedure E is working,'' he said.
The dispute over Hans Island took hold in 1973, when Canada and Denmark failed to agree on who owned the island when they sat down to draw their international border. Instead they left Hans Island as a no-man's land, with the border line running up to the island's southern coast, disappearing, and then reappearing just off its northern coast.
Denmark, however, soon began securing its claim, ordering government representatives to plant the Danish flag. Canada responded last year, sending first a contingent of soldiers to erect a Canadian flag and stone inukshuk, then Bill Graham, the then-foreign minister. The dispute came to a head last September, when the two countries publicly agreed to resolve the issue.

I personally think that this article shows just how important defining things such as the oceans boundarys are. By having this to be more clearly defined I believe that it will only result in less confusion and more peace in general.

Source: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=4bd93446-551a-4257-ad33-867b01c3afbe&k=45279

The Arctic

The other day in class i found out I was going to be doing my major research paper on the biology of the Arctic ocean. In my opinion this is a great topic , as because of the extreme climatic conditions in this area certain marine fauna and flora are found here that are completely different (physiologicallt and behaviourally) than any other spot on earth. I decided to start my research by just learning a little more about the arctic in general, as I feel that to truly underdtand the biological organisms in this area it is important to understand the environmental conditions that restrain them and that they must adapt to in order to live in this area. The first notable fact I found was that the Arctic ocean is unique in that it borders three amin continents of Europe, Asia, and North America. No other oceans border these three industrial and economic powerhouses and thus I believe it it important to note this. Another important fact to note when studying the marine organisms of the arctic, is that even though the climate of the area is very extreme it still has a very narrow temperature range. This is because of the latitudal position of the arctic ocean, and thus because of the relatively stable climate that this area has, minor fluctuations can have a dramtic effect on the fauna and flora of the area as they are not heavilly adapted to varying temperatures (they are adapted to cold and extreme, but not a wide variation around this). Another important note is that many of the marine mammals of this area are endangered. This ties into what perturbations in the ecological system are impacting it (humans, exotic species, climatic change etc.) As well if marine mammals are at risk then what will the futur hold for samller organism such as fish etc. (think food chains and trophic levels). Lots of very charismatic species are endangered in the arctic including beluga whales, and walruses. The ecosystem of the arctic is fragile due to many factors including species low tolerance to temperatur variation as well as ph.

All in all for my major research paper, I intend to focus on the ecology of the arctic ocean marine life (primarily mammals), and look at how the chemistry of the oceans impacts these organisms over time (evolution). This will promote a change in the allele frequencies of individual populations of species towards either extinction or adaptation. We must find out what is happening to marine species of the arctic.

Links

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/xq.html

Why Sea Critters Go Where They Go?

While searching the various links on Dr.Conrad's blog, I came accross an interesting article titled "Why sea critters go where they go". This article was found on the ocean channel link, and talks about how the physical property of ocean temperature can have such a dramatic an influential effect on where marine animals will end up as well as how to manage them effectively. This study is being conducted at the University of North Carolina, and it looks at how temperature can alter the number and diversity of marine organisms in the sea. Temperature has been shown to have an effect on how far larvae will travel before they mature and make home. Larvae in colder waters tend to travel further than larvae in warmer water due to the animals physiological response with respect to their development, as in warmer water they develop sooner and thus dont travel as far. This holds important considerations for their survival as if they dont travel as far they may never reach where they are supposed to and may not have enough food and may die. This article greatly shows how when studying marine life and conservation it is important to know that many changing physical, and chemical properties not influenced so much by humans can have a profound imapct on species evenness and species richness in our oceans, as well as affect how we should manage them.

Linkhttp://www.ocean.com/resource.asp?locationid=1&resourceid=6803&ProdId=&CatId=1&TabID=&SubTabID=

Artficial Habitats- Effective or not?

Today in the newspaper there was an interesting article regarding work done by Marine biologist Glyn Sharp of B.I.O regarding the creation of artificial habitat for crustaceans to help battle their loss of habitat prompted by creation of wharfs, infilling, dredging and pipeline creation in coastal waters. They had intially hoped that this creation of artifial habitat made up of coral reef, would allow lobsters to have a new home. What they found however was that lobsters were not going to these areas, but still seemed to prefer rocky areas. This leads to the question of whether or not this means of sustainablility is effective or if it is a waste of time and resources is up for debate; however I personally believe that it is great that something is being done to help these organisms even if it possibly is only for monetary gains. Also as shown in the article even though lobsters did not go to these artificial habitat areas, other organisms did. This shows that by doing this it was not a complete waste as they learned some important information regarding other species.

Global Warming and the Oceans

When many people think of global warming they think of carbon dioxide levels causing the earth to become much warmer than it was before. One aspect that many people do not think about is the worlds oceans and the marine fauna that lives there. If the world continues to warm at this alarming pace there will be a dramatic effect on the flora and fauna that live in the oceans as well as land. Many marine organisms have specific physiological tolerance to things such as temperature, ph, salinity etc. If the climate continue to warm and melting og glaciers causes ocean currents to change a dramatic effect will be felt on fauna and flora of many regions, as not onky could there habitat become inhospitable but an unfair advantage could be given to certain species over others resulting in mass extinction. Another key thing that must be noticed, is that if sea level continues to rise due to melting glaciers caused by global warming, many organisms that live on the coastline will have thir habitat significantly alterered. From a human perspective think what will happen to those nice houses built along the coasts.

The following article shows an example of how incompetent some people can be when it comes to pressing needs like the ones listed above.

written by:Jonathan Rowe

Really, it sounds like something that would come out of the mouth of Stewie Griffin. But it comes out of the mouth of Alberta Premier Ralph Klein.
Mr. Klein has stirred controversy in the past by rejecting scientific data suggesting industrial pollution is one of the leading causes of global warming.
He has even said global warming trends that occurred millions of years ago may have been caused by “dinosaur farts.”

Farmed Salmon "Good or Bad"

Today, while searching the links posted on the geography 2305 oceans blog, I came accross a very interesting article on salmon farming. Salmon farming which is done from a commerical standpoint to allow for less pricey salmon as well as to allow salmon to be available all year round has been shown to have some very negative impacts. These impacts as shown by the article on the oceans alive website, range from hurting the marine life as well as having negative effects on the human population as well. One such impacts on marine life documented by this article, was the fact that in farming salmon, although it does not directly result in overfishing of salmon from the oceans, it still can lead to lower salmon populations. How does this happen you may ask?, well for starters farmed salmon still have to eat just like any other biological entity. Because of this therfore the raising of salmon by humans results in less prey for the wild carnivourous salmon in the oceans. This is even magnified by the fact that salmon farmers want bigger and better salmon for eating purposes for humans and thus they are fed even more than their wild counterparts. As well not only are salmon populations harmed, but other organisms that use the prey that salmon farmers are feeding their farmed salmon are affected. This therfore has a profound effect on entire ecosystems as everything is connected in one way r another. Think of Dr. Conrad's saying of "pulling strings". The pulling of the strings is people farming salmon, and the impacts in species number can be felt throughout the marine fauna (and to some extent flora, because if organisms can not feed off of their original prey they must find other alternatives). Another reason that salmon farming is not such a great idea, grows from the fact that by feeding salmon excessive amounts of feed that are high in pcbs which can cause many health problems, we are actually hurting our own population. Salmon in the wild do not have this as much of a problem, due to their range of feeding of fish, krill, and other small animals from cleaner waters. Overall, I believe that this example of farmed salmon continues to show how interconnected the entire oceans ecosystems are and how changes in one thing not believed to be hurting the wild can actually have a harmful effect without us realizing it. I believe that people need to really think hard about the consequences that their actions may have on things such as the fauna, flora, and environment of our world. To think, this whole problem spurred from somebody wanting to cash in on humans wants.

Link:

http://www.oceansalive.org/explore.cfm?subnav=article&contentID=5323

John Harrison- "Without him where would we be"

One person that was discussed in todays lecture was John Harrison and his sea- chronometer. I found myself intriqued by this technological innovation and decided to research it a little bit. One interesting thing that I found about this topic was that even though many highly educated people attempted this problem of inventing a device that could measure longitude to an accuracy of half of a degree of a great circle, it was John Harrison, just your average person of the time without a lot of formal education, who accomplished this feat. This article helps to show that even though students rely on instructors to teach them what they know, it is not always the best way for innovation to occur. This is because sometimes determination and teaching yourself (as Harrison did) can work as good or better than learning from someone in the front of the room. I believe it is all about balance; however student should take thier own innitiative in accomplishing what they want to get out of thier education. As well I find it very interesting that Captain Cook and his voyages in some way are more well known than John Harrison; as without Harrison invention of the chronometer accurate navigation would not have been possible.

Links

http://www.solarnavigator.net/history/john_harrison.htm

Narwhals at risk- a loss of Biodiversity

While searching on Dr. Conrad's links on her blog, I came accross a very interesting article on one of my favorite marine mammals "The Narwhal". The article I found was from her link to ocean explorer. This article talks about how the University of Washington and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources have come up with a successful means for tracking migration patterns of the Narwhal. This is to be done by the use of satelites, and will help with a multitude of problems and interests. One such interest is that it will allow researchers to know a little more details about the whale as the satelites attached to them will tell them physical characteristics of the ocean such as temperature and PH. A key problem that will be benifited by this research is it will help to give an explanation for declining populations of these mammals. In another article found via internet on national geographic it shows a study done in 2004 that by using photos it has been shown on average that the Narwhale population has decreased about 6 percent each year for the last 17 years. This species is obviously in trouble and needs help, which is why I am very encouraged by current efforts to further study these whales in their habitat (The Ocean).

I personally am very interested in whales and marine fauna in general and really hope this marvelous creature does not continue to head down this path.

Any other information anyone has on the topic would be appreciated.

A few key facts about Narwhals

1) Relative of Beluga whales (look similar too)

2) Commonly found in the arctic

3) One or two teeth grow to form a tusk (up to 6 feet long)

4) Tusks covered by algae (shows mutualistic relationships between marine fauna/flora and shows that a loss of one species will impact other)

Interesting Links

1)www.narwhal-whales.com

2)http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0413

History of the Oceans- Vikings

One aspect of Monday Jan.8th lecture that I thought would be interesting to read more about was how the vikings in the middle ages impacted the development of oceanography. One key point that I noticed to be very intriquing was that fact that it was the vikings not Christopher Columbus who is frequently dicussed in history, that came accross North America first. his was accomplished by Leif Eriksson, who in 1002 sailed from Greenland (which they were also the first europeans to settle) to North America an amazing 500 years before Columbus. The vikings were the first people from the old world to arrive at the new world.
As a side note in the newspaper today Jan.9/07, there was an article that discussed how United States lobster fisherman should have a shorter season as well as use fewer traps to help sustain and protect right whales. This article helped show the interconnectedness that occurs within the oceans and its biological fauna, as people who are fishing lobster are not only depleting that resource by overfishing ,but their traps are also acting as a means of hurting the right whale population, which as a huge mammal requires many resources to survive and is fragile to begin with. This also hurts the diversity in the oceans, as if the right whale population decreases/becomes extinct the species evenness and species richness will both decrease and a ripple effect will be seen throughout the food chain. The United States government is doing a great thing by urging these fishermen to change their practice.