Climate change threatens the West Coast shrimp – Swedish Radio

warmer water because of climate change on the west coast shrimp to move north, according to new Swedish research.

Earlier research have shown that warmer water because of climate change on marine animals to escape to cooler water. And now a new Swedish study that nordhavsräkans propagation associated with right water temperature, which may mean that the Swedish shrimp disappear northwards in the future.

– Shrimp can make it difficult to cope in the southern part and the right Sweden is the southern border of shrimp, says Carl André, professor of marine ecology at Gothenburg University.

Swedish shrimp is in the very southern part of nordhavsräkans range, ie in the Skagerrak -Kattegatt along the Swedish west coast. So move räkpopulationerna north, so it may be the end for the Swedish west coast shrimp.

Carl Andre and his colleagues have collected and taken DNA samples of shrimp from various locations in the North Atlantic. Then they compared the shrimp’s subassemblies, showing the shrimp population structure, with the temperature of the sea.

The scientists discovered then räkpopulationernas propagation was related to temperature, which can thus be crucial for the shrimp to be or not to be in a certain area.

But it may be that the räkpopulationer that live in Swedish waters in the future adapt to warmer waters, instead of escaping to the north. But to find out that this requires more DNA analysis. And now for the autumn, Carl Andre and his colleagues at Tjärnö laboratory also examine the shrimps ability to adapt to warmer temperatures.

– This is what is the great issue of climate change in the ocean – the species to adapt to changing temperatures and changes in salinity maybe fifty to a hundred years, says Carl Andre.

Is it that shrimp do not disappear without adapts, so will the shrimp is left to taste worse, due to the acidification of the ocean that will arise from climate change. It shows previous studies at the University of Gothenburg researchers organized taste tests of shrimp exposed to more acidic seawater.

How global climate change threatens our west coast shrimp in several ways. And according to Carl Andre is very important to study and try to preserve shrimp in Swedish waters:

– In many ways, first it is an important economic resource and it is a food resource and it is a cultural and social Resource especially in summer times. So it is clear that it is an important goal in many ways to understand how the shrimp can be affected by water temperature.

– Then there is also a genetic resource. If there are shrimp in the southern parts which are adapted to higher temperatures, so maybe you have to protect those stocks even more, says Carl André, professor of marine ecology at Gothenburg University.

Earlier this year the Swedish North Sea shrimp on Species Database Red List. According to the Swedish Species Information Centre is the North Sea shrimp is now “near threatened” because the stock of adult shrimp declined in Swedish waters during the last decade (2005-2014). The current rödlistningen specifies not what is behind the decline.

Niklas Zachrisson / Vetenskapsradion
niklas.zachrisson@sverigesradio.se

Reference :
André. C. et. Al Genetically distinct populations of northern shrimp, Pandalus borealis, in the North Atlantic: adaptation to different tempera tures as an insulation factor. Molecular Ecology (2015) 24, 1742-1757 DOI: 10.1111 / mec.13158