Impact of ocean acidification in shark behavior and physiology

Dr Rui Rosa¹

¹MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Laboratório Marítimo da Guia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Cascais, Portugal

New studies have been evaluating the potential effects of end-of-century elevated CO2 levels on sharks and their relatives’ early development, physiology and behaviour. Here, we review those findings and use a meta-analysis approach to quantify the overall direction and magnitude of biological responses to OA in the species of sharks that have been investigated to date. While embryo survival and development time are mostly unaffected by elevated CO2, there are clear effects on body condition, growth, aerobic potential and behaviour. Furthermore, studies to date suggest that the effects of OA could be as substantial as those due to warming in some species. A major limitation is that all past studies have involved relatively sedentary, benthic sharks that are capable of buccal ventilation – no studies have investigated pelagic sharks that depend on ram ventilation. Future research should focus on species with different life strategies (e.g., pelagic, ram-ventilators), climate zones (e.g., polar regions), habitats (e.g., open ocean), and distinct phases of ontogeny in order to fully predict how OA and climate change will impact higher order predators and therefore marine ecosystem dynamics.

Biography:

Rui Rosa graduated in Marine Biology by Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon (FCUL), in 1999 and completed a PhD degree in Biology by the same institution in 2005. Subsequently, Rosa carried out his post-doctoral activities on Climate Change research at Univ. Rhode Island (USA), funded by FCT and US National Science Foundation.

Rosa lab (http://www.ruirosalab.com) seeks to understand how future environmental changes, such as climate change and ocean acidification, affect marine biodiversity.

Rosa has authored 170 papers in international peer reviewed journals and some of those studies were published in top-ranked journals such as Nature Geoscience, PNAS, Proc. Royal Soc. London, Global Ecology and Biogeography, Global Change Biology, and Biology Letters, among others, as well as highlighted in renowned media – e.g. BBC News (three times), Discovery Channel, National Geographic (two times), The New York Times, The Times – and in European Commission Alerts. He has also been engaged in internationally-renowned evaluation programs, including those of US National Science Foundation, NERC (UK), ANR (FR), National Geographic, and US MIT Sea-Grants.