{"id":2594,"date":"2022-06-13T02:10:31","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T06:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/hooklinescience\/?p=2594"},"modified":"2023-07-26T13:47:14","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T17:47:14","slug":"does-ultraviolet-radiation-affect-our-favorite-sport-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/hooklinescience\/does-ultraviolet-radiation-affect-our-favorite-sport-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Ultraviolet Radiation Affect Our Favorite Sport Fish?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
A new study shows that cobia, snapper, and tuna embryos have a fascinating way of avoiding harmful rays.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Every spring, cobia make North Carolina shipwrecks their homes. Yellowfin tuna are prevalent in the open ocean, and the red snapper fishery will open the second Friday in July. But the depletion of the ozone — and the resulting increase in exposure to sunlight and ground-level ultraviolet radiation (UVR) — could affect the offspring of some of our favorite sport fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aquatic organisms employ a variety of different mechanisms to reduce the harmful effects of UVR exposure. The embryos of fish floating in or near surface ocean waters once were thought to have little to no control over their mobility, though, leaving them at high risk for damage associated with UVR. In fact, recent findings on mahi-mahi \u2014 a species that lives and spawns in surface waters \u2014 found that UVR did indeed affect the species\u2019 embryos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But is UVR affecting the embryos of similar species of fish who share the same spawning behaviors? If so, how?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Researchers investigated the potential role of embryos\u2019 control over their ability to float (\u201cbuoyancy control\u201d) for three species of marine fish that spawn on open waters: cobia, red snapper, and yellowfin tuna. The team used red snapper and cobia embryos from The University of Miami Experimental Hatchery and yellowfin tuna embryos from the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission’s Achotines Laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The embryos of all three species increased their body density to create \u201cnegative buoyancy\u201d \u2014 in other words, to sink \u2014 after they faced UVR exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The team also determined that buoyancy changes due to UVR exposure are not unique to the embryos of fish who spawn in the upper levels of the ocean. Previous research, for instance, found that UVR affected many other species, including dab, plaice, two species of coastal fish, the common sardine, anchoveta, mahi-mahi, cyanobacteria species, and two species of marine cod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These findings suggest that fish embryos could be considerably deeper in the water column than scientists previously thought \u2014 and the study supports the idea of the universal utility of buoyancy control as a way some fish embryos can avoid UVR and other environmental stressors.<\/p>\n\n\n\nResearch Need<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What did they study?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What did they find?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
So what?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Reading<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n