Reposted by NoTricksZone
By P. Gosselin on June 27, 2021
The latest video from The Cold Sun takes in a recent article on ocean acidification and its alleged effects on coral fish behavior.
Lower ocean pH affecting fish?
Previous research, begun in 2009 by Prof. Philip Munday and Danielle Dixon of James Cook University, Australia, suggested that “ocean acidification” is wreaking havoc on fish behavior, leading the IPCC to claim in a 2014 report that this to “profound” consequences for marine diversity “and the media to publish a series of climate doom reports.
But Munday and Dixon’s alarming research has since been seriously challenged in a recent article by a group led by fish physiologist Timothy Clark of Deakin University in Geelong, Australia:
A year ago, the researchers published the results of a comprehensive 3-year study in the journal Nature in an article entitled “Ocean acidification does not interfere with the behavior of coral reef fish”.
The summary of the paper:
Coral reef fish are predicted to be particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification at the end of the century on the basis of several high-profile publications4,5, which have reported profound behavioral and sensory impairments – for example, complete attraction to the chemical signals of predators under conditions of ocean acidification. Here we show comprehensively and transparently that ocean acidification at the end of the century – in contrast to earlier studies – has negligible effects on important behavior of coral reef fish. such as avoiding chemical cues from predators, fish activity levels and behavioral lateralization (left-right rotation preference). With the help of data simulations, we also show that the large effect sizes and small variances within the group reported in several previous studies are highly unlikely. Taken together, our results indicate that the reported effects of ocean acidification on coral reef fish behavior are not reproducible, suggesting that coral reef fish behavior disorders in high carbon oceans will not be a significant consequence. “
The cold sun reports on the new findings, noting that Clark et al. repeated Munday’s experiments and failed to reproduce the results:
A team of seven, led by Timothy Clark from Deakin University, Australia, co-published an analysis in the renowned journal Nature devastating criticism the dramatic scenarios of the Munday group. ” […]
“Even with high CO2 values at the end of the 21st century, the group of critics does not expect any negative effects on the behavior of the coral fish.”
However, James Cook University denies that Munday and his team of scientists engaged in sloppy science.
James Cook University has been embroiled in controversy, particularly over the dismissal of researcher Prof. Dr. Peter Ridd, who claims he was fired for expressing unpopular views.
You can also read more about Munday’s controversial research here.
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