2 November 2021. We are happy report that the ICES Journal of Marine Science just published the last major experimental paper on Atlantic silverside CO₂-sensitivity from our lab. Callie Concannon and co-authors report on two complementary, long-term rearing trials in 2015/16 and 2018/19, where silverside juveniles or newly fertilized embryos were reared under contrasting temperature and CO₂ conditions to maturity. This revealed negative effects of high CO₂ conditions on female fecundity, but only at the warm, not the cold temperature treatments (Fig. below). Our study and its data are novel, because they were generated by the first whole-life CO₂ rearing experiment of a fish and are the first empirical fecundity effects shown for a broadcast-spawning fish species.

The paper is also special to us, because its publication marks the erstwhile conclusion of our yearlong, NSF-funded efforts (OCE#1536165) to understand the CO₂ sensitivity and its mechanisms in this important forage fish and long-standing model in fish ecology and evolution. The project ran from 2015 - 2020, produced 15 publications, 2 book chapters, and over 40 presentations, while furthering the careers of a post-doc, a PhD student, 5 Master students and over 10 undergraduates.