Giving Compass' Take:

• Futurity details new research showing that the powerful sense of smell salmon have — which ties into their health — might be in trouble as oceans continue to absorb carbon emissions.

• This is yet another example of the damage rising CO2 levels inflict on our planet's ecosystem. What can environmental funders do to help protect our oceans?

• Here's why looking after the environment is a collective responsibility.

The ability to smell is critical for salmon. They depend on scent to avoid predators, sniff out prey, and find their way home at the end of their lives when they return to the streams where they hatched to spawn and die.

But ocean acidification is changing the water’s chemistry and lowering its pH. Specifically, higher levels of carbon dioxide, or CO2, in the water can affect the ways in which coho salmon process and respond to smells.

The study, which appears the journal Global Change Biology, is the first to show that ocean acidification affects coho salmons’ sense of smell.

“Salmon famously use their nose for so many important aspects of their life, from navigation and finding food to detecting predators and reproducing. So it was important for us to know if salmon would be impacted by future carbon dioxide conditions in the marine environment,” says the study’s lead author Chase Williams, a postdoctoral researcher at University of Washington.

Read the full article about how CO2 messes up salmons' sense of smell by Michelle Ma at Futurity.