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Increased Carbon Emissions Creating Giant Crabs
An anonymous reader writes "A lot of things in America are supersized: our portions, our drinks and now, apparently, our crabs. New research reveals that crabs can grow much faster and larger when water is saturated with carbon.This means that as greenhouse gas emissions grow, so will these crustaceans."
The link points to page two of the article. For those that wonder why it started in the middle here is the proper link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/2013/04/07/a0c29f48-972f-11e2-b68f-dc5c4b47e519_story.html
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I didn't just RTFHeadline but read the whole story and nowhere does it mention CO2 influencing the size of crab growth. In fact, quite the opposite, the article says that crabs don't feed as well under higher CO2. The article barely mentions CO2 and is really about conservation efforts of oysters and crabs.
Another histrionic headline about global warming. Here's the actual report, which documents the change in calcification of a variety of marine animals under increasing levels of CO2 dissolved in the water. Nothing in there at all about "giant crabs". Critters with hard shells -- crabs, lobsters, etc. -- will develop thicker shells as you increase the levels of CO2. News at 11.
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Higher levels of carbon in the ocean are causing oysters to grow slower, and their predators — such as blue crabs — to grow faster
versus
Under conditions with lower levels of carbon, two mud crabs polished off 20 oysters in six hours. But in the aquariums with higher levels of carbon, the mud crabs seemed confused. They went over to the oysters, but they didn’t eat as many — sometimes fewer than half of what other crabs ate under normal conditions.
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Ok so they grow faster, nice. They grow bigger? Awesome.
How about flavor? Are they more tasty when they grow bigger and faster? Why is nobody asking the important questions?
Because they're answered in TFA.
The increase in carbon allows them to grow faster simply because they have more carbon to pump into bigger/harder shells (i.e. they molt more often).
The tastey/meaty bits aren't growing faster, leaving big strong shells filled with very little meat.
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If you read the TFA - most of the size increase is going into the shells, not the flesh.
So they may LOOK like better food from the outside - but they're worse.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The title is a total misreading of the results and yet one more example of a journalist, who is so incapable of understanding science that they get it completely bass akward.
Crabs are getting any bigger or "super-sized" rather ocean acidification confuses crab foraging behavior. Consequently, in Chesapeake Bay, where there are efforts to conserve oysters and thus clean the bay and increase oyster production, more oysters means more crabs under high carbon regimes.
The moral of the story is not that global warming will somehow give us giant crabs, but rather that with ocean acidification, oysters and those who cultivate them may be at a disadvantage because it takes spat much longer to grow, even though they obtain a slight advantage in that their crab predators can be become confused with increasing ocean acidification.
None of this is particular good news, since there is a upper limit as to how much extra carbon dioxide both oysters and crabs can tolerate and still produce their shells. Most don't realize it, but this problem is also true for fish, who must calcify their bones in order to grow and mature. With significant ocean acidification that means less and less fish, which is not good for humans, since we obtain about 50% of our protein from the ocean. The problem with ocean acidification is that unlike carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, where the cycle turns over about once every thirty years, natural pH changes needed to counteract human induced pH lowering only takes place over 100,000's or millions of years. So once we get there, we are more or less permanently there. Not to bright a prospect for mankind.
CO2 suffocates humans in sufficient dosage. Plants, however, love it and crabs use the extra carbon to make their shells better.
So yay for global warming!
usually too much radiation just makes things sick, lethargic and dead.
CO2 doesn't suffocate stuff, lack of oxygen, and CO will suffocate. Anyway, in the water, CO2 turns into carbonic acid, which becomes carbonates and bicarbonates, if I remember correctly.
O2 binds to hemoglobin stronger than CO2, so with enough O2, CO2 isn't a problem, though it may cause discomfort since your body detects it's presence, rather than the lack of oxygen. CO however, binds to heme more strongly than O2, so it is an issue.
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For crab lovers, bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. Carbon-absorbing crabs put all their energy into upgrading shells, not flesh — like a mansion without much furniture. So diners might be disappointed years from now when they crack open huge crabs and find little meat.