A new scientific paper that was published this autumn reveals that the population of pink salmon is exploding across the North Pacific Ocean, and global warming is assisting in making the process. New evidence suggests that pinks aren’t simply outdoing other salmon species but are affecting the entire ecosystem, from tiny to huge marine whales.
“Pink salmon are among the top winners when it comes to changing climate,” said Greg Ruggerone who is a salmon researcher and the lead author of a new paper of 40 pages released in the week of Sept. 21 by the journal of science, Marine Ecology Progress Series.
For every winner, there’s a loss -or in this instance many. New research suggests that the increase of pink salmon that has occurred in recent years is impacting the fragile food chain of the ocean. Pink salmon have an annual cycle. The population during odd years is 25percent higher than the even number years. When numbers in pink are rising the other species are also down.
“From phytoplankton to zooplankton and forage fishes the five types of Pacific salmon along with marine animals. Everything is pointing to pink salmon” Ruggerone said.
Scientists aren’t aware of all the reasons why pink salmon thrive when they are in warm waters. They do recognize that pinks are more adept than other species of salmon at hunting down prey and growing off their food sources. They’re actually the most prolifically growing salmon, and ready to produce spawning in less than two years, which is three times faster than kings.
Additionally, hatcheries are growing their populations by around 5 billion salmon are being released each year to the Pacific Ocean, mostly pink and Chum.
The common assumption of the sea is that it is of sufficient capacity to sustain them all. However, Ruggerone claimed that his latest paper shows that this isn’t the case.
“I believe the evidence we have provided supports the conclusion that the ocean has a small capacity for carrying both wild salmon and enormous numbers of hatchery pink and chum salmon that are release into the North Pacific,” he declared.
His latest research reveals that the time that pink salmon become large, other species are afflicted. Pink salmon consume a lot of prey, ranging from zooplankton and tiny fish. This creates:
- Fewer, smaller and less other salmon species, as well as steelhead trout
- There is less growth in the herring population in Alaska
- A 33 lower birth rate of Humpback whales in Southeast Alaska
- Higher mortality, with lower birth rate for threatened orcas of Puget Sound.
The study also links that pink salmon cycling with over a dozen species seabirds.
“They put more eggs in good years, even years, than they did on odd, terrible years” stated Alan Springer who is coauthor on the research, and an ocean bird researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Springer claimed they received information from scientists around the world who have discovered periodic patterns.
“A range of reproductive parameters changed in sync with the even-odds-year pattern that is present in pink salmon” He said.
Things like starving and hungry shearwater bird species on a regular cycle.
Scientists say that there isn’t any evidence to support any other explanations to explain the pattern of patterns in the biennial cycle that has been observed.
“You know, the sea temperatures at the surface, or winds or the atmospheric indexes of whatever, didn’t reveal any like patterns” Springer said. Springer. “So that’s what we take as the final result.”
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is skeptical about the research paper’s conclusions. Commissioner Doug Vicent-Lang, who wrote a letter to the editor, described the study an “hypothesis” and added that it’s “the topic of a ongoing debate between scientists.”
“The conclusions formulated are described as more definite than the credibility of the evidence to back the conclusions,” he wrote.
Researchers are in agreement that this is a hypothesis but it’s a very strong one. The evidence suggests connections, but it doesn’t provide all the possible reasons.
“More research is definitely needed,” Ruggerone said. “But in the case of the synthesizing paper, a significant part is the consistency of the relationships between these taxa.”
Taxa refers to a biological group.
They hope scientists from other fields use their findings to dig more deeply into all the ways the massive pink salmon population might be impacting other species of the North Pacific. The timing of events is crucial because ocean temperatures are likely to increase.
