Get the latest tech news
Oceanographers record the largest predation event ever observed in the ocean
In the largest predation event ever recorded, researchers observed capelin shoaling off the coast of Norway, where a swarm of cod overtook them, consuming over 10 million fish in a few hours. The team hopes to deploy their technique to monitor the large-scale dynamics among other species of fish and track vulnerable keystone species.
This is what MIT and Norwegian oceanographers observed recently when they explored a wide swath of ocean off the coast of Norway during the height of spawning season for capelin — a small Arctic fish about the size of an anchovy. However, as climate change causes the Arctic ice sheet to retreat, capelin will have to swim farther to spawn, making the species more stressed and vulnerable to natural predation events such as the one the team observed. The team observed that as the capelin descended, they began shifting from individual to group behavior, ultimately forming a huge shoal of about 23 million fish that moved in a coordinated wave spanning over ten kilometers long.
Or read this on r/technology
