Shrunken snails offer a glimpse of the future

• Autores: Colin Barras
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3018, 2015, pág. 12
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • It's the survival of the smallest. As ocean acidification begins to bite, some marine species might adapt by shrinking--threatening the profitability of commercial fisheries. The phenomenon is known as the "Lilliput effect," after the fictional island inhabited by tiny people in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Overtime, carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere dissolves in the ocean, causing it to become more acidic. At times in Earth's distant past this has triggered mass extinctions that wiped out most species. Many marine shellfish. corals and fish that made it through the turmoil shrank by one-third or more, and remained small for tens of thousands of years, says Richard Twiitchett at the Natural History Museum in London.