A new bombshell has entered the villa. And she is wearing a literal shell.
In the Florida Keys, conch specialists at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) are on a mission to save the queen conch sea snail — an endangered species — by playing matchmaker.
In the last decade, the marine species has fallen victim to illegal fishing and ocean acidification.
But there’s a third, larger reason at play: the conches simply aren’t mingling.
“Nearshore conch are destined for a life of celibacy, and we’re trying to fix that,” Gabriel Delgado — a research scientist and conch specialist at the FWC — told The Guardian.
This summer, Delgado and his team designed a new program that’s essentially “speed dating for shellfish.”
“It’s like, ‘Hey folks, you guys are having trouble meeting another conch,’” Delgado joked. “Well, here’s some more to the party, now you can open up to each other a little bit more.’”
The main reason queen conch need help coming out of their shells? Extreme temperatures have kept them from testing the waters and finding mates.
“It’s because we’re dealing with very shallow water, too cold in the winter, OK in the spring, and in the summer it gets too hot,” Delgado explained.
“The animals shut down. Instead of going into reproduction, they shunt their energy into basically survival and never really develop their reproductive organs very well.”
Climate change has played a major role in the rapid decline of the queen conch population, as the global sea surface temperature continues to rise.
According to the National Environmental Education Foundation, the average global sea surface temperature has been “consistently higher during the past three decades than at any other time since reliable records began in 1880.”
And Florida is no exception. Last year in Manatee Bay — north of Key Largo — water temperatures reached “hot tub” level heat when they soared to 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit.
But scientists like Delgado aren’t sitting back. As threats mounted against the spiral-shaped creatures, he and his research team stepped up.
This past summer, they tagged and relocated 208 conch from the heart of the Florida Keys to cooler waters in an offshore reef further north. The refreshing drop in temperature wakes the conch up from their lethargic reverie, and it sets them up for success by giving them a wider dating pool to choose from.
Moving over 200 conch is no small feat. The average queen conch (or Aliger gigas) can grow up to 12 inches in length, weigh five pounds, and live over 30 years in a healthy environment.
Fortunately, it was all hands on deck for the FWC’s unique matchmaking operation.
“We asked the public to keep their eyes open,” Delgado said. “They reported them online, some people emailed, and we used community volunteers to gather up the 208 that we moved in June to an offshore aggregation.”
It will take up to a year to see how successful the “speed dating” program actually is, but Delgado has already spotted signs of sparks flying under the sea.
When the team went back to the reef in mid-August, the recently rehomed conches hadn’t crawled away from each other.
“So far, things are going as expected given the short timeframe,” Delgado said. “[Next time] we’re recording who is mating, who is laying eggs.”
Andrew Walker, the president and chief executive of the FWC, told The Guardian that helping the queen conch bounce back will “increase the health of Florida’s coral reef.”
“It’s a creative solution using a partnership of citizen volunteers and scientists to help a Florida protected species find their shell-mate,” Walker quipped.
Header image via Pickpik (Public Domain)