Munday et al., 2009:

"Our results show that elevated CO2 and reduced seawater pH that could occur early next century in the world’s oceans can dramatically affect the behavioural decisions of marine organisms during critical stages of their life-history. In this case, acidification disrupted the olfactory mechanism by which clownfish larvae discriminate between cues that may be useful for locating suitable adult habitat and other cues that could lead larvae to unsuitable settlement sites. Attraction to olfactory signals that are normally avoided, in combination with a reduced preference for favourable cues, could clearly cause fish larvae to be attracted to locations that are suboptimal for settlement or are devoid of settlement habitat. Olfactory cues appear to be a key mechanism by which the pelagic larvae of many coastal marine species identify and navigate toward adult habitat and then select suitable settlement sites (11–13, 15, 21–26, 28). Disruption to this process would have significant consequences for the replenishment of adult populations and could lead to the decline of many coastal species."

Copyright (2009) National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A

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Citation and/or URL

Munday, P.I., Dixson, D.L., Donelson, J.M., Jones, G.P., Pratchett, M.S., Devitsina, G.V. & Doving, K.B. 2009, Ocean acidification impairs olfactory discrimination and homing ability of a marine fish. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 106: 1848-1852

Spatial Coverage

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Temporal Coverage

2008

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