Stressful childhoods can affect an individual’s adult years and influence future generations. Scientists at the University of California, Davis, found a similar pattern holds true for red abalone exposed as babies, and again as adults, to the stress of ocean acidification.
White abalone shells are magnificent structures. Translucent during the marine snail’s juvenile days, the extremely durable shell increases in opacity as the organism ages, gaining its paint-splatter-esque red, brown and white coloring from the algae it eats.
When we think of the impacts of climate change, the words global warming, sea-level rise, and extreme weather will often come to mind. But another lesser-known, though equally serious, consequence of our anthropogenic footprint is the global acidification of our oceans.
