In an op-ed piece for the New York Times, Junichi Sato, executive director of Greenpeace Japan, elucidates on a growing problem with humanity's impact on the ocean particularly commercial fishing: incidental whale and dolphin deaths.

Much like your laptop in a Starbucks, the cyber-fish will use Wi-Fi technology to transmit information back to researchers. Chemical sensors will sniff out hazardous pollutants, such as leaks from underwater pipelines.

Earlier versions required human controls, like traditional mini-exploration submarines, but these new and improved fish navigate independently. At a mere $29,000 apiece and measuring nearly 5 feet long, they’re highly energy efficient and can swim around and analyze water pollution for hours on end. Plus they look cool!

Reminds of the United States Navy using dolphins to detect explosive mines in the ocean, but I have question. Are they too real looking? I watch a lot of Animal Planet and these robots look a lot like a tropical fish and fish get eaten all the time. It’d certainly be a killjoy if a mako shark snapped up a $29,000 investment. Maybe they should be outfitted with torpedoes too.

Via Reuters.

The study reveals that every species lost causes a faster unraveling of the overall ecosystem. Conversely, every species recovered adds significantly to the overall productivity and stability of the ecosystem, as well as its ability to withstand stresses.

“Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world’s ocean, we saw the same picture emerging,” says lead author Boris Worm, PhD, of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. “In losing species, we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are—beyond anything we suspected.”

The four-year analysis is the first to examine all existing data on ocean species and ecosystems, synthesizing historical, experimental, fisheries’ and observational data to understand the importance of biodiversity at the global scale. The results reveal global trends that mirror what scientists have observed on smaller scales, proving that progressive biodiversity loss not only impairs the ability of oceans to feed a growing human population, but also sabotages the stability of marine environments and their ability to recover from stresses.

While the data show that ocean ecosystems still hold a great ability to rebound, the current global trend projects the collapse of all species of wild seafood that are currently fished by the year 2050. (Collapse is defined as 90% depletion.) Collapses are also hastened by the decline in overall health of the ecosystem, as fish rely on clean water, prey populations and diverse habitats.

“Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the oceans’ species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood,” says coauthor Stephen Palumbi, PhD, a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation at Stanford University in California.

The impact of species loss goes beyond declines in seafood. Human health risks emerge as depleted coastal ecosystems become vulnerable to invasive species, disease outbreaks and harmful algal blooms.

“The ocean is a great recycler,” Dr. Palumbi says. “It takes sewage and recycles it into nutrients, it scrubs toxins out of the water, and it produces food and turns carbon dioxide into food and oxygen. But in order to provide these services, the ocean needs all its working parts: the millions of plant and animal species that inhabit the sea.”

“The data show us it’s not too late,” notes Dr. Worm. “We can turn this around. But less than 1% of the global ocean is effectively protected right now. We won’t see complete recovery in one year, but in many cases species come back more quickly than people anticipated—in three to five to 10 years. And where this has been done we see immediate economic benefits.”

The authors conclude that restoring marine biodiversity through an ecosystem-based management approach—including integrated fisheries management, pollution control, maintenance of essential habitats and creation of marine reserves—is essential to avoid serious threats to global food security, coastal water quality and ecosystem stability.

“This isn’t predicted to happen; this is happening now,” says coauthor Nicola Beaumont, an ecological economist with the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in England. “If biodiversity continues to decline, the marine environment will not be able to sustain our way of life. Indeed, it may not be able to sustain our lives at all.”

Some headlines warrant closer inspection. In this case, it was a July 8 story in the Los Angeles Times: “Sea Critters’ Feces Clean Air, Study Says.”

OK, I’ll bite. For those of us concerned about global warming and organic living, we’ll take our environmental solutions any way we can get them.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanic Institution (WHOI) in Woodshole, Massachusetts, have been studying transparent jellyfish-like creatures called salps, considered minor players in the ocean food chain. But salps may be more important to the fate of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than previously thought.

In the May issue of Deep Sea Research, scientists reported that salps—about the size of a human thumb  and swarming by the billions in ocean “hot spots”—may be transporting tons of carbon per day from the ocean surface to the deep sea, thereby preventing it from reentering the atmosphere.

Salps feed on phytoplankton, tiny marine plants that consume carbon dioxide. Other sea life eats phytoplankton, but most of it returns to the ocean when these animals defecate or die.

WHOI biologist Dr. Laurence Madin, along with Dr. Patricia Kremer of the University of Connecticut’s Department of Marine Science and other colleagues, have repeatedly found that one particular salp species (Salpa aspera) multiplies into dense swarms that last for months. One swarm, in fact, covered 38,600 square miles of sea surface, consuming up to 74% of microscopic carbon-containing plants from surface waters. Their sinking fecal pellets transported up to 4,000 tons of carbon per day to deep water.

“Salps swim, feed and produce waste continuously,” Dr. Madin says. “They take in small packages of carbon and make them into big packages that sink fast.” (Indeed, salp fecal pellets sink as much as 3,280 feet a day.)

As the researchers concluded, if salps are an oceanic “dead end,” which other marine animals avoid eating, they can send even more carbon to the deep. This enhances the transport of carbon away from the atmosphere.

You go, salps!

WHOI photo by Dr. Laurence Madin