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Cod are traditionally regarded as fish that thrive in cold
water, and therefore represent a species that might find things
hard going in a future climate change with rising sea
temperatures, so researchers from several European un iversities
have equipped 3000 cod from 8 different European stocks, with
advanced temperature gauges.
For over a year the gauges registered and
stored water temperatures around the fish at fixed regular
intervals. So far 902 of the cod have been re-caught through
fishing, and the tags holding the stored data sent back to the
researchers, and the results have been published as a feature
article in the “Marine Ecology Progress Series”. The project had
concentrated on cod because it is such an important fish
commercially; at the same time, it is a large fish which can
easily carry the electronic tag without being bothered by it.
Some fish were found at temperatures as low
as –1.5 degrees, while others were swimming quite happily in
water that was nearly 20 degrees above zero. This shows that cod
are relatively adaptable fish that can tolerate higher
temperatures than was previously thought. However, while this is
true for adult cod, they appear to be somewhat more conservative
in their choice of water temperature when they spawn. During
this period, all the fish stocks studied consistently sought out
water that had a temperature of between 1º and 8º.This indicate
that the eggs and larvae stages of a cod’s life may constitute a
particularly vulnerable time with regard to the effects of
climate change.
 Researchers
from Madagascar and the United States have found a new bird
species in the remaining Dry Forests of Madagascar The new
species of forest-dwelling rail, named
Mentocrex beankaensis,
with
the genus
Mentocrex
being endemic to Madagascar, and the new species,
beankaensis
being coined after the locality, the Beanka Forest in western
Madagascar. This species was distinguished from another in the
same genus, known in the eastern portion of the island, based on
aspects of size, plumage and DNA, and “New Birds to Science”
emphasizes the critical need to conserve the remaining dry
forests of Madagascar.
The spacecraft Messenger
became the first to orbit
Mercury, the Solar System’s innermost planet, on March 18th
2011. and on March 29th at 5.20 am, captured a historic image,
the first ever obtained from a spacecraft. In the next 6 hours
Messenger
acquired an additional 363 images before
downlinking some of the images to Earth. In the next three days
Messenger acquired a further 1185 additional images during its
commissioning–phase activities.
The year-long primary science phase of the
mission began on April 4th and there are plans to acquire more
than 75.000 images in support of
Messenger's
science goals. The dominant rayed crater in the upper portion of
the image is Debussy, The bottom portion of the image is near
Mercury’s south pole and includes a region of Mercury’s surface
not previously seen.
There were three reported sightings of
Bottlenose Dolphins during March, all in the Falmouth and
Carrick Roads area; another
sighting of unidentified dolphins were almost certainly
Bottlenose which was in the same area within days of the other
sightings.
Two sightings of Common Dolphins
in pods of about 8 were off Logan Rock and The Cowloe, Sennen;
another sighting of 20 to 30 unidentified dolphins heading into
the Bay off Lamorna on the 22nd were probably also Common
Dolphins.
Twelve
sightings of Harbour Porpoises were all between Sennen and Logan
Rock, the largest group was 4 to 6 off Cape Cornwall on the
20th. The first Basking Shark of the year was seen at 8 metres
depth by BDMLR divers off Roskilly on the 20th.
 A
Lamprey was caught in a seine net off the beach at Watergate Bay
on the 16th.
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