Climate change could threaten the survival and development of common whelk – a type of sea snail – in the mid-Atlantic region, according to a study led by scientists at Rutgers University–New Brunswick.
Climate change could threaten the survival and development of common whelk – a type of sea snail – in the mid-Atlantic region, according to a study led by scientists at Rutgers University–New Brunswick.
The common, or waved, whelk (Buccinum undatum) is an important commercial species that has been harvested for decades in Europe and Canada for bait and human consumption. Its habitat within the mid-Atlantic region is one of the Earth’s fastest warming marine areas and annual fluctuations in the bottom temperature are among the most extreme on the planet due to unique oceanographic conditions.
Climate change will result in higher temperatures and that’s a problem because temperatures are closely linked to the whelk’s spawning cycle and temperature increases could threaten its survival, according to the study in the journal Helgoland Marine Research. This is the first time the species’ annual reproductive cycle in the mid-Atlantic has been documented.
“Previous studies showed that the common whelk, a cold-water species, has some resilience to warmer temperatures,” said lead author Sarah Borsetti, a doctoral student at Rutgers’ Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. “But rising temperatures may have a negative impact on whelk survival, recruitment, development and growth.”
Read more at Rutgers University
Image: An adult whelk collected aboard a commercial scallop vessel. (Credit: Sarah Borsetti/Rutgers University-New Brunswick)
