A Tiny Yet Vital Organism May Adapt to Climate Change With ‘Hidden Costs’

  • 📰 DiscoverMag
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 63 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 29%
  • Publisher: 53%

Energy Energy Headlines News

Energy Energy Latest News,Energy Energy Headlines

The copepod’s coping method amid rising temperatures and ocean acidity would have consequences for the broader food chain. Read more about it below.

Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsA recent study shows that the tiny copepod crustacean is the ocean’s equivalent of a canary in a coal mine. New research demonstrates that these “cows of the sea” may be able to evolve to adapt to climate change — but it could come at the cost of their resiliency, a recentHow the Copepod Copes

But this left them less able to survive other stressors, such as a shortage in the phytoplankton they eat. The copepods reproduce every 20 days, giving researchers the chance to observe how nearly two dozen generations adapted to climate change. At first their reproduction levels slipped a bit, but they were back on track after a few generations, says study co-author Melissa Pespeni, a biologist at the University of Vermont.

The noble copepods, along with all life on Earth, have faced a particularly challenging decade: The past eight years have been the warmest on record since record-keeping began in 1880, reports. Earth’s temperature in 2021 tied 2018 as the sixth-warmest year on record, according to an analysis from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration .

Another scientist involved in the study, Hans Dam, a biological oceanographer at the University of Connecticut, says he was surprised by the speed with which the species transformed. “They adapt very quickly and get to the point where they can’t get any better, but they don’t get back to where they were before being hit with those stressors,” he says. “It means there’s no free lunch with climate change. There’s always a price to pay.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

Within the framework of a course I carried out a revision, surely incomplete, called 'Ocean acidification as a stressor of climate change: analysis of impacts on marine copepods'. There are many interesting works about it. One of them as an introduction is

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 459. in ENERGY

Energy Energy Latest News, Energy Energy Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

These sustainable homes are 100% off the grid, have 0 utility bills and are made of recycled trashWith climate change bringing warmer climates, erratic weather and drought, your home could easily cost you lots of money.
Source: ksatnews - 🏆 442. / 53 Read more »