Canada.com: Northern shrimp could be 'canary' of climate change say biologists in EU, Canada and US - by Richard Foot

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Northern shrimp could be 'canary' of climate change say biologists in EU, Canada and US - by Richard Foot

In an article to be published Friday in the journal Science, federal biologists from Canada, along with partners in the United States and Europe, reveal that North Atlantic shrimp have developed the ability to expertly time the hatching of their eggs to coincide with the release of springtime ocean algae blooms, on which the baby shrimp feed. What makes this such an exquisite feat of nature is that the egg hatching --which occurs, on average, within days of the algae bloom -- is not triggered by the bloom itself, but by ocean temperatures that dictate the incubation period of the eggs. Shrimp populations in different Atlantic climatic zones have adapted their reproductive cycles to cope with longer or shorter incubation periods--but in each case the periods are timed to coincide with local algae blooms.

In warmer parts of the ocean -- off the coast of Maine, for example --shrimp lay their eggs only a few months before the annual spring algae bloom. In colder parts, such as the waters off Iceland, where eggs need more time to incubate, shrimp eggs are laid almost a year before the bloom. So important is ocean temperature to the shrimp's survival that Koeller says the species is extremely vulnerable to climate change, which could play havoc with egg incubation times.