Tag Archives: Clownfish

Clownfish Will Endure and Adapt to Rising Ocean Temperatures

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To endure Rising ocean temperatures, clownfish adapt by decreasing their size.

Research has shown that various orange-striped fish shrink during heat waves off the coast of Papua New Guinea. These smaller fish are more likely to survive.

Climate change is causing heat waves to become more frequent and severe underwater. Elevated water temperatures can lead to the bleaching of the sea anemones that clownfish rely on, prompting them to adapt in order to survive.

During the severe heat wave of 2023, scientists tracked 134 colorful clownfish in Kimbe Bay, discovering that 101 of them exhibited significant reductions in length due to heat stress.

“We were genuinely surprised at first when we observed them shrinking completely,” remarked Morgan Bennett Smith, a research author at Boston University. The findings were published on Wednesday in the Journal of Science Advances.

Two clowns next to an anemone in Kimbe Bay off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
Morgan Bennett Smith / AP

Researchers are still unsure about how clownfish shrink, but one theory suggests they may be reabsorbing their own bone material. Smaller fish need less food, allowing Kakulfish to conserve energy during stressful conditions by becoming smaller.

Certain clownfish breeding pairs also exhibited synchronized contractions that improved their survival. The females maintained the social hierarchy and adjusted their size to remain larger than their partners, according to the researchers.

Additionally, other species are also shrinking in response to heat. For instance, marine iguanas reduce in size during El Niño events, which warm waters in the Galapagos. However, this coping mechanism has not been reported in reef fish until now.

“This is an additional strategy that fish employ to adapt to a changing environment,” said Simon Thorold, a marine ecologist at the Woods Hole Marine Facility who was not part of the research.

A kakuru fish next to anemone in Kimbe Bay off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
Morgan Bennett Smith / AP

This strategy may help fish withstand heat waves in the short term, but it remains uncertain how they will cope if such conditions persist over the coming years, Thorold noted.

The researchers found that these reductions in size were temporary. Clownfish were able to “catch up” and grow again once the environment became less stressful.

“These natural systems are severely stressed, but they exhibit remarkable resilience,” Versteeg states.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Clownfish produce a sugary mucus to protect themselves from the stings of sea anemones they live in.

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Clownfish and sea anemones have a symbiotic relationship

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The secret is in the runny nose. Chemical changes in the mucus that coats the clownfish’s body can blunt the sting of its symbiotic sea anemone.

Researchers have long suspected that something special in the mucus of the clownfish, also known as the clownfish, protects it from the microscopic stingers of the sea anemone’s tentacles. But the exact mechanism remained a mystery, he said. karen burke da silva At Flinders University, Australia.

To investigate, she and her colleagues bred orange clownfish (Amphiprion percula) and bubble tip sea anemone (Entacmaea four colors) at the Institute. Some fish and sea anemones live in pairs, while others live separately. The researchers collected mucus samples from the fish at various times before and after they had adapted to the anemone, and then placed the mucus on a microscope slide and pressed it against the anemone’s tentacles.

Sea anemones sting by firing small coiled venomous harpoons explosively from their stinging cells called stinging cells. The researchers used a microscope to count and compare the number of stinging cells that fired during the mucus treatment. They found that mucus from a clownfish’s partner, but not mucus from an unknown fish, reduced the firing of stinging cells.

To find out why, the researchers analyzed how the glycans (chains of sugar attached to proteins) and fats in the clownfish’s mucus change as they adapt to their hosts. Three weeks after the symbiotic partnership began, the chemical profile of the mucus changed significantly. In particular, the concentrations of seven types of glycans were changed. Removing glycans or otherwise tweaking them could be one way he suppresses line cell firing, Burke da Silva says.

Alonso Delgado At Ohio State University, the sea anemone shrimp (Ansiromenes Magnificus), using similar glycan methods or evolving different strategies to thwart sting.

Additional strategies may also be at work for clownfish. Glycan changes are slow, and after a partner splits, he grows back within a day. Instead, fish may use an unknown chemical strategy at the very beginning to gain initial access to sea anemones.

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Source: www.newscientist.com