Italy’s drying lakes imperil rare shrimp species found only here

22 June 2017

By Lou Del Bello

A tiny ancient shrimp found only in a single small lake tucked away in the mountains of central Italy could soon disappear, as a combined result of climate change and an earthquake that hit the area last year.

The fairy shrimp (Chirocephalus marchesonii) has evolved from a species native to the Himalayan region. Its ancestors are thought to have reached the Appennine range during the last ice age, after their eggs latched onto the feet of migratory birds.

“Over the millennia, the shrimp has adapted to the specific environment of Lake Pilato, and its reproductive cycle is in sync with the seasonal hydrologic balance of the basin,” says Maria Gaetana Barelli of the Sibillini Park authority. The species is unique among freshwater shrimps in the area for its Asian origins, offering clues on the movement of animal species in prehistoric times.

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Barelli says that to hatch, the shrimp’s eggs need such a complex combination of environmental parameters that her five-year-long research project wasn’t enough to make them hatch in captivity. This is why she is concerned that the crustacean may go extinct if the small lake it inhabits undergoes significant environmental changes.

Big shock

“The major earthquake that struck the region last summer has certainly caused deep shocks in the water system of these mountains,” says Alessandro Rossetti, a biologist with the Sibillini Park authority. “The water levels in the basin are abnormally low this year, and we still don’t know if this is due to a disruption of the aquifer. If that was the case, the lake would permanently dry out and this unique shrimp would disappear.”

A group of scientists flew drones over the lake and analysed its biochemistry, looking at factors such as temperature and acidity to gain insight into the underground water system that feeds the basin. However, more research is needed to establish whether the earthquake has fatally damaged it.

The shrimp can survive long dry spells because it buries its eggs under the lake bed, where they can remain alive and intact for more than a year until conditions are right to hatch. Hikers are the most immediate threat to the eggs, because they kill most of them by walking on dry areas of the lake bed.

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Japan Earthquake Caused Long-Lasting Stress in Dogs

Family dogs caught up in the Japan earthquake of 2011 and subsequent nuclear disaster at Fukushima showed signs of stress not inconsistent with PTSD long after the events, a new study finds.

The research compared abandoned dogs rescued from Fukushima with non-disaster affected dogs abandoned in 2009 and 2010, before the earthquake. The dogs that lived through the disaster had stress hormone levels five to 10 times higher than the dogs that were simply abandoned or found as strays.

"Long-term care and concern regarding the psychological impact of disasters appears necessary in humans and companion animals," the researchers wrote today (Oct. 11) in the journal Scientific Reports.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/23896-japan-earthquake-dog-stress.html

Salvador quake destroys 45,000 endangered sea turtle eggs - via Herp Digest

By Associated Press,  August 28

SAN SALVADOR — Wildlife authorities say a strong earthquake in the Pacific Ocean late Sunday destroyed more than 45,000 endangered sea turtle eggs on the coast of El Salvador.

The director of the turtle conservation program for the El Salvador Zoological Foundation says the 7.4-magnitude undersea quake sent at least three waves at least 30 feet high up the beach and destroyed thousands of nests and just-hatched turtles. It also washed up on about 150 people collecting eggs in order to protect them in special pens hundreds of feet up the beach. The waves injured three.

Program director Emilio Leon said that in the last year and a half the foundation has successfully hatched and released 700,000 turtles from four species at risk of extinction.

Underwater Eruption Strews Ocean Surface with Dead Fish

An underwater volcano that erupted near the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa is giving scientists a closer look at how ocean ecosystems could respond to climate change, from dying fish to adapting plankton.

The ecosystem responded much as the researchers would have expected to the high temperatures and changes in acidity caused by the uneasy volcano south of El Hierro island. But the strength of the response was a surprise, study researcher Eugenio Fraile-Nuez of the Instituto Español de Oceanografía in Spain told LiveScience.

"The physical and chemical response of the system was predictable, but we never have imagined that we would reach this magnitude," Fraile-Nuez said. 

The eruption killed or drove away all of the fish in the region (though many were seen floating dead on the ocean's surface), the researchers found. Some phytoplankton, or the floating plants that sit at the bottom of the ocean food chain, were able to adapt.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/21396-underwater-volcano-eruption.html

Quake claims more victims as rare birds die

By Jeff Hampton

The Christchurch earthquakes have claimed more victims after thousands of birds have died of a disease that has gripped wetlands around the city.

The number of birds affected is more than died in the Rena oil spill, and rare species such as the royal spoonbill are among the worst hit.

Tests are still being done but it is suspected a disease called avian botulism is responsible for the deaths and the problem is being blamed on the earthquakes which badly damaged the sewerage systems in Christchurch's east.

And now the sewage levels have risen in the wetlands in Christchurch's east where the birds live, and also in the nearby council oxidation ponds.

Among those species hardest hit are the paradise shelduck, of which more than 1400 have died totaling 85 percent of the population there.

Half the mallards that live there have also died as well as smaller numbers of the royal spoon bill and pukeko.

 “They're nationally important wetlands so perhaps they waited quite a long time before stepping in to do something about it,” says fish and game officer, Brian Ross.

Removing the dead bodies of the birds is one way to reduce the casualties, as birds feed on maggots that carry the disease, and the Christchurch City Council says it is finding fewer dead birds and hopes the number if deaths is in decline.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Quake-claims-more-victims-as-rare-birds-die/tabid/1160/articleID/244229/Default.aspx 

Toads predict earthquakes: Official

Scientists believe they have a plausible explanation for Italian toads' apparent ability to sense the imminent earthquake that struck the city of L'Aquila on 6 April 2009.

By chance, Dr Rachel Grant of the UK's Open University was monitoring a toad population at San Ruffino Lake, around 74km from the quake's epicentre. As we previously reported, five days before the 6.3-magnitude shake, "the number of male common toads in the breeding colony fell by 96 per cent", while "most breeding pairs and males fled" three days before the earth moved.

At the time, Grant speculated that this unusual behaviour - when the bufo bufo population at the lake should have been busy spawning - may have reflected the toads' instinct to escape to higher ground to avoid croaking it, "possibly where they would be at less risk from rock falls, landslides and flooding".

As to what stimulus caused the exodus, Grant's initial findings suggested that toads "are able to detect pre-seismic cues such as the release of gases and charged particles, and use these as a form of earthquake early warning system".

Read more here ...

Dozens of Jumbo Squid Beached After Quake--Coincidence?

Raw Video (La Jolla, California, July 11, 2009)

Ker Than for National Geographic News
July 14, 2009

Residents near a San Diego-area beach awoke to find dozens of jumbo squid, also called Humboldt squid, flapping helplessly on the shore Saturday—about an hour after an earthquake had struck off the California city at 7:34 a.m.

According to local news reports, some beachgoers in the city of La Jolla attempted to throw the squid back into the water to save them from circling seagulls.

The mysterious jumbo squid stranding and the earthquake, though, are probably linked only by coincidence, experts say (jumbo squid picture wallpaper).

For one thing, scientists began finding beached squid at least three days before the Saturday earthquake, said squid expert William Gilly of Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station.
"So unless the squid were predicting the earthquake, I don't think there's any link," he added.

(See "Can Animals Sense Earthquakes?")

Giant Squid Impervious to Quakes?

Jumbo squid can grow up to seven feet (two meters) long and weigh as much as 100 pounds (45 kilograms).

Biologists don't know of any squid bodily functions that would be affected by an earthquake. Unlike fish, for example, squid do not have air bladders, which can conceivably be compressed by an earthquake's seismic waves.

"It's hard to absolutely rule out, but it seems unlikely to me" that earthquakes could affect squid, said Danna Staaf, a Stanford marine biologist currently conducting research close to the squid stranding location.

Squid Stymied by Change in the Water?

Jumbo squid strandings have been seen around San Diego before.

In July 2002 thousands of the blue-red creatures washed onto area beaches. In the following months similar mass strandings were reported all along North America's Pacific coast, as far north as Alaska.

Like whale and dolphin strandings, the causes of squid beachings are a mystery.

"We've got a couple of ideas, but basically we don't know," Staaf said.

One theory is that the squid can be disoriented by rapidly changing water temperatures.

"The water temperature [around La Jolla] has been a little weird lately," Staaf said. "If the squid were in really warm water, but then it suddenly got very cold, that could be confusing for them."
Another possibility is that the beached squid had ingested dangerous amounts of a toxin called domoic acid. Produced by ocean plankton, the toxin can become concentrated in squid prey.

Staaf and her colleagues have collected the bodies of some of the stranded squid and plan to study their stomach contents.

"We're going to try to figure out if there's toxin in them."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090714-giant-squid-earthquake.html