Sea Urchins Tolerate Acid Oceans

World – Rising levels of acidity in the world’s oceans due to global warming and climate change seem to have no adverse effect on Sea urchins and they are in fact able to successfully able to adapt to the change.

The particular type of creature also known as Echinoderms have been tested in waters that were high in levels of carbon dioxide during the earlier stages of their lives and there were no harmful changes recognized by the researchers.

The group of creatures include sea cucumbers and also starfish. They were exposed to quite extreme conditions for a total of five days in a tank and proved to be extremely resilient.

Echinoderms are found all over the world’s oceans, but particularly in coastal environments, where they are naturally exposed to huge fluctuations in pH, said the leader of the research team, Dr Deborah Iglesias-Rodriguez. They had predicted that the creature’s calcium carbonate skeletons would be affected by the corrosive levels of acid.

Despite no obvious physical damage in the larval development or the production of soft tissue, they did recognise that there was a decreased amount of the calcium carbonate which is produced by the organisms. This led to slightly smaller and slimmer skeletons.