Mouseworld

I have to tip my hat to CNN.com for this post. Some time ago, I signed up to receive environmental alerts from them, and I've been pleasantly surprised by the frequency and breadth of their environmental coverage (although often disappointed by the depth). While on the road a fair bit over the past month or two, several of their news stories got put aside in my inbox. Tonight, in between pitches during the Sox game, I started catching up on those articles, and noticed a troubling (but hardly new or surprising) theme: the repeated declines, threats and conflicts with large wild animals.

First there was a report on the dire status of Borneo's pygmy elephant (which, despite its name, certainly qualifies as a large animal standing 8 feet high) due primarily to habitat destruction. Several weeks later, there was a report on a herd of around 100 Asian elephants swimming across India's Brahmaputra River to the island of Majuli, where they damaged houses and destroyed sugar cane fields. The elephants likely headed for Majuli due to the squeeze imposed by habitat loss on the mainland. Less than two weeks later, in the same region of India, six Asian elephants were electrocuted after drinking rice beer fermenting in large tubs on farmers' plantations. These stories made me think of my post way back in May on other human-elephant interactions. If we can find a way to share the landscape with Earth's largest land animal, that would be a potent symbol of our potential to co-exist with many other species. Sadly, I find myself thinking I had better plan a trip to see an elephant in the wild before they are too rare, or worse.

Next there was news of the continued decline of loggerhead turtles, ocean-going reptiles that can weigh up to 300 lbs (the CNN link appears to be dead, but the NY Times article is still up). The federal report attributes the trend to expanded commercial fishing operations, and destruction and development of nesting beaches is also a common factor in the decline of sea turtles. As with the elephants in Indian and Borneo, we are putting the squeeze on our sea turtles.

We are doing the same thing to one of our closest living relatives. In eastern Congo, rebels have not only seized the habitat that forms one of the last refuges for mountain gorillas, but they and the army inadvertently kill many of the gorillas caught in the crossfire of their conflict, including 10 this year. With only 700 mountain gorillas left in the world, any killings and loss of habitat are simply too much.

The simple reality is that all living things need space to live, and big animals need more space. As we continually claim more land, we will continue to lose more elephants, sea turtles, gorillas, and other large, magnificent beasts. We might be moving toward a world where the only species surrounding us are those small critters that can get by on limited space and can fit in the few cracks and crevices we give them. Of course, even this vision of "Mouseworld" is not a certainty, since small species are also susceptible to extinction due to habitat loss and other threats such as pollution. Perhaps we're lining up for a world that we share with naught but microscopic bugs, germs, bacteria and viruses. We might want to be careful about moving in that direction, for some of those organisms have proven to be surprisingly adaptable and nasty. However, which species will be our neighbors might not be an issue if we continue the trend of squeezing ourselves out of living space as well...

New friends, Part II

Around the same time that my sister's new friend was herself making a new friend in an old lobster (as described in Part I below), two friends of mine were welcoming a whole slew of new friends into their home. Ryan and Katie are the proud owner of a magnificent coral reef aquarium in their East Village apartment, something to keep the sea in their lives in between their much beloved dive trips to exotic and far-flung corners of the globe (as an aside, as a fine diver, writer, photographer, and naturalist, Ryan really should be authoring his own marine-themed blog; stay tuned for the link when it happens...). Among the residents of their aquarium is a pair of Bangaii cardinalfish.

This past summer, Ryan and Katie reported that their Bangaii pair had given birth to 18 babies (a few of which are pictured above). Like all cardinalfish, Bangaii cardinals adopt the peculiar practice of brooding young in the mouth of the male. The male will safeguard the fertilized eggs as the embryos develop, and then release them upon hatching. Ryan and Katie expressed great pride at providing a home to such a large clutch of young of this species, which is critically endangered in the wild and listed on the IUCN Red List.

Conveniently, my friend and former labmate during grad school John (who also appears in last month's "Postscripts" post and May's "Who needs outer space?") was visiting when news of Ryan and Katie's new arrivals came. John is an expert on tropical fishes of the Indo-Pacific, and I asked him about the Bangaii in the wild and in captivity. He confirmed the dire status of the species in the wild due to its very restricted distribution, overharvest for the aquarium trade, and habitat destruction. However, John also guessed that the global population in aquaria is probably much larger than the wild population had ever been. Therefore, captive breeding like that done by Ryan and Katie is taking harvest pressure off the wild population, and one day might provide the basis for a reintroduction program.

Recently, Ryan and Katie reported that the breeding pair gave birth to a second, smaller clutch of four young. This one caught them off guard, and before they could quarantine the newcomers from the other inhabitants of the tank - several of which might find them a tasty treat - one had swum down to the haunt of their dusky jawfish Terrence. Now, Terrence was the victim of a previous run-in with an urchin spine that left him blind in one eye and quite sullen in mood. However, this accident proved fortunate for the wayward Bangaii.

Rather than swallow the Bangaii baby whole in a manner befitting the ambush predator style of his species, Terrence not only let him/her live but slowly adopted a partnership. The Bangaii serves as an extra set of eyes on Terrence's blind side, while Terrence provides protection (or at least provides a feeling of safety) from other predators. And, the friendship has rejuvenated Terrence's spirits, making him more active and vibrant. Ryan notes that it seems these two fish have formed their own unique symbiosis (discussed in July's "Symbiotic betrayal" and, ahem, further addressed in last month's "Postscripts").

I think he's right. It is different than many symbioses seen in nature in that it is not the product of repeated interactions between two species that is continually reinforced as an inherent behavioral trait at the genetic level through natural selection. Rather, it is opportunistic and situational, and while it might lack the long-term persistence of other famous partnerships in nature, it is significant in what it says about the adaptability of living things and the responsive plasticity of their behavior. It makes me think of the famous, fascinating, and frankly quite adorable friendship the developed between a juvenile hippo and an ancient giant tortoise at a Kenyan nature preserve following the Indian Ocean tsunami.

I'll leave this post with some thoughts from Ryan on his Bangaii/jawfish duo, the sentiments of which can likely apply to many people's thoughts on the hippo/tortoise pairing...and probably many other oddball friendships we've all encountered over the years:

"That such a curious friendship could form in a cube in my living room is such a quirky nugget of life-affirming treasure that I thought I would share it with some of those who’ve been polite enough to feign interest when I’ve forced you to hunker in front of the glass while I wax poetic on such topics as the shell games played by hermit crabs and the peripatetic nature of coral polyps. Hopefully it will set the mood for your weekend."

New friends, Part I

My father experienced his 15 minutes of fame this past summer at a Wilco concert in Northampton, Mass. As Dad stood in the front row right along the stage, lead singer Jeff Tweedy knelt down by him, put his arm around Dad's shoulders, and performed a song that was part duet, part serenade. My sister reported that this was one of the more surreal experiences of her life, both for seeing her musical idol sharing this oddly tender moment with our 60 year old father, but also for the minor celebrity status it brought about for Dad and sis. The incident became a hot topic on Wilco message boards the following week, and several fellow fans approached them at that show and others upon recognizing them. A few of these even traded contact info with Becky and became pen pals.

Among these new friends was Elaine, a doctoral student in physiology at the University of Vermont. Upon learning about Dad and Becky's affinity for all things connected to the sea, not to mention their son/brother's professional connection to the marine realm, Elaine recounted a tale of her own ascent to celebrity status through a friendship with a giant lobster in a local supermarket. The gargantuan crustacean, appropriately nicknamed Andre, had made his way from the briny Atlantic to the Price Chopper in Burlington. There, Elaine and her friend Crystal developed a fondness and admiration for the big fella, and began an effort to raise money to buy him and save him from the dinner table. Their cause sparked a local stir, and they soon had an offer from a local pilot to fly the pair with their new friend down to Boston so he could move into a new home at the New England Aquarium, where he will serve a valuable educational role. Watch a video clip of the trio's odyssey from WPTZ TV here.

The news report does not comment on Andre's age or length. The relationship between size and age in lobsters is highly variable, as in many marine invertebrates, and depends upon temperature, food and habitat quality, and inherent genetic traits, among other factors. The relationship between length and weight, on the other hand, is typically very consistent. Using a published equation for lobsters in the Gulf of St Lawrence, at 17 pounds Andre is probably just over 200 mm in carapace length (CL; i.e., the main body of the animal covered by the largest section of shell, as illustrated here), which is around 8 inches. Since the carapace is only about half the total length of the animal, Andre probably measures at least 16 inches from head to tail, not including the claws. In the Bay of Fundy, lobsters take 20-35 years to reach 200 mm CL (as measured in this study), which gives us a ballpark estimate of Andre's age.

To put Andre's size and age characteristics in perspective, The Lobster Conservancy (whose website is well worth browsing for a wealth of information on lobster biology and fisheries) reports that about half of the lobsters in the Gulf of Maine reach maturity just before they reach the size at which they can be legally harvested. In Long Island Sound, very few lobsters remain in the water after they reach the minimum legal size (see Figures 5 and 6 in this CT DEP report), and the recent stock assessment by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (the interstate body charged with setting coast-wide lobster harvest regulations) shows similar patterns in other locations (find it at http://www.asmfc.org/ and see Figures 3.1.1 and 3.1.2). Therefore, fishing pressure is quite intense and most lobsters probably do not get a chance to spawn more than once (yet, lobster populations remain remarkably resilient to this pressure).

The Lobster Conservancy also shows how a marginal increase in the minimum size in the 1980s seemed to spawn (pun fully intended) a rapid increase in the lobster stock due to the greater average fecundity of the spawners who were afforded more time to grow and spawn. So, monsters like Andre (and I say that with great affection as a long-time fan of Godzilla, who is seen battling a giant lobster above in "Godzilla versus the Sea Monster") have not only pulled off an impressive feat in avoiding the traps for so many years, but they probably play a disproportionately important role in producing the next generation of lobsters (especially true of Andre's girlfriends).

So hats off to Elaine for getting the big guy to a place where he can help teach others about these remarkable bugs of the deep!