Environmental Issues for the Marine Biome

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Environmental Issues for the Marine Biome
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Essential Questions

• How are humans impacting the marine biome?
• What is our role in protecting the marine biome?

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How are humans impacting the marine biome?
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One Ocean The Changing Sea

• http//oneocean.cbc.ca/series/episodes/4-the-chang
  ing-sea
• Questions provided
• 4515 mins

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The 5 issues facing the Marine Biome

• Acidification
• Coral Depletion
• Deadzones
• Overfishing
• Pollution

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What is Acidification

• An increase in the pH level of the water of an
  ocean.
• The increase in pH is attributed to an increase
  in carbon
• Carbon interacts with other ions in the water to
  produce carbonic acid

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The pH scale

• A scale which measures from 0 to 14
• 7 neutral pure water
• 0.8 acidic battery acid
• Typically the ocean ranges from 7.9 to 8.2 pH

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Acid Test The Global Challenge of Ocean
Acidification

• http//www.nrdc.org/oceans/acidification/aboutthef
  ilm.asp
• 2134mins

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What causes Acidification

• Use of fossil fuels
• Dependence on fertilizers
• We are dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
  at a rate of 28 million metric tons per year

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What is the result of Acidification?

• The more acidic the water, the less ability it
  has to absorb CO2
• Fish are starved for oxygen
• Corals and other marine species are deprived of
  calcium
• A proliferation of deadzones
• Ocean acidification (OA) is the quiet tsunami of
  environmental degradation.
• Within a few decades, OA may devastate some
  marine ecosystems and threaten the productivity
  of our fisheries.

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What is Coral Depletion?

• When the tiny organisms called coral die, they
  leave behind a skeleton in the form of bleached
  coral. As a bleached area spreads, the diversity
  of life in the immediate area decreases,
  effectively turning the skeletal remains of coral
  into a marine cemetery.
• ¼ of coral reefs are dead
• 60 of coral reefs are in trouble

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One Ocean Footprints in the Sand Chp. 2

• http//oneocean.cbc.ca/series/episodes/2-footprint
  s-in-the-sand
• 10mins

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What causes Coral Depletion?

• Rising temperatures
• Increased CO2
• Increased acidity
• Development of tourism resorts
• Sediment
• Debris

• Chemical pollutants, fertilizers, pesticides
• Overfishing
• Bottom trawling fishing
• A single pass of a trawl removes up to 20 of the
  seafloor flora and fauna
• Coral mining

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Causes of Coral Depletion

• There is a lack of carbonate ions for corals to
  grow
• There is a lack of zooxanthellae which protect
  and feed corals
• Algal blooms smother the corals

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What is the result of Coral Depletion?

• ¼ of all fish spend some part of their life on a
  reef
• May loose these ecosystems in 20-30 years
• Fish and other sea life found in coral reefs feed
  between 30 million and 40 million people annually
  providing jobs
• Coral reefs also form barriers around coastlines,
  protecting coasts (and the residences and
  business found there) from erosion caused by
  waves and currents.

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What are Deadzones?

• are areas where the bottom water (the water at
  the sea floor) is anoxic meaning that it has
  very low (or completely zero) concentrations of
  dissolved oxygen
• An area of the ocean devoid of life
• 40 years ago there were lt50 deadzones,
• 2003 there were 146
• 2008 there were 405!
• 2010 there were 415!
• Some are as small as a square kilometre
  (0.4 mi²), but the largest dead zone covers
  70,000 square kilometres (27,000 mi²)

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What causes Deadzones?

• Human causes
• Use of fertilizers
• Nitrogen
• Phosphorous
• Runoff from sewage
• Urban land use
• Can occur naturally in enclosed bodies of water
  or as a result of coastal upwellings and reduced
  winds and currents
• Nitrogen and phosphorous causes the increase
  reproduction of phytoplankton
• The result is algal blooms
• Blooms gobble up available oxygen as they spread
• When the blooms die, they sink to the bottom, as
  they decompose (by bacteria) they further deplete
  the oxygen

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Location of Deadzones
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What is the result of Deadzones?

• Bottom-dwelling species often die
• Reproductive problems in fish involving decreased
  size of reproductive organs, low egg counts and
  lack of spawning
• Fish are often quickly rendered unconscious and
  doomed
• Reports of baby octopuses climbing up crab-trap
  ropes in order to get air

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What is Overfishing?

• the harvesting a fish species at a rate exceeding
  the maximum harvest that would still allow the
  population to be replaced by reproduction
• 70 of the worlds fisheries are now fully
  exploited

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What causes Overfishing?

• Use of long-lines
• With 60 miles of hooks
• Bottom trawling
• Bycatch
• Illegal fishing
• Consumer demand

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Bottom Trawling

• Bottom trawlers drag giant weighted nets along
  the ocean floor, ripping up or scooping out
  whatever they encounter, including ancient coral
  forests, gardens of anemones and entire fields of
  sea sponges.
• Seamounts -- volcanic mountains and hills that
  rise from the ocean floor but do not break the
  surface -- are being damaged by these industrial
  fishing practices, and the wealth of flora and
  fauna clustered around sea mounts is being wiped
  out in the process.

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Bottom Trawling continued

• Many rare, ancient and even unknown species --
  some of which hold promise for biomedical
  research or are critical to undersea biodiversity
  -- are at risk, including
• Cold-water corals, which are as exotic and
  colorful as their warm-water counterparts.
• Red tree corals form ancient forests, stretching
  up to 7 feet tall and 25 feet wide, providing
  shelter for fish, shellfish, and sea stars.
• Corals on seamounts can live up to 8,000 years
  and tend to take branching, tree-like forms,
  making them particularly susceptible to trawl
  damage.
• Sponges
• form giant fields in the deep, creating stretches
  of habitat up to a mile long and 50 feet high.
• Fish
• including orange roughy, which take decades to
  mature and can live for 125 years.

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Bottom Trawling continued

• New species of flora and fauna tucked away on
  seamounts and other deep-sea habitats.
• Just like the creatures of the Galapagos Islands,
  many seamount species have evolved in isolation,
  resulting in unique species.
• Scientists studying a cluster of seamounts near
  New Caledonia have determined that nearly
  one-third of the species there have never been
  seen anywhere else.
• Novel chemical compounds that hold promise for
  the treatment of cancer and other diseases after
  their discovery by scientists investigating the
  biomedical properties of deep-sea organisms.

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By-Catch

• Unwanted and undersized fish hauled up by bottom
  trawlers are thrown back dead or dying -- in some
  areas, as many as four pounds of fish are
  discarded for every one pound brought to market.

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What is the result of Overfishing?

• If we dont stop overfishing, all of the planets
  fish will have been caught by 2048
• A chain reaction occurs when we overfish a
  particular species which can decimate other fish
  species and even an entire ecosystem

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What is Pollution?

• Every 2.59 square kilometers of the global ocean
  contains an estimated 46,000 pieces of floating
  plastic
• Farm and yard fertilizer runoff, sewage, and
  other land-based sources that contributes to
  harmful blooms of algae, which in turn lead to
  fish kills and swimmer illness, and ocean
  deadzones

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What causes Pollution?

• Discarded plastic bags, six pack rings and other
  forms of plastic waste
• Fishing nets, usually made of plastic, can be
  left or lost in the ocean by fishermen
• Toxic additives used in the manufacture of
  plastic materials can leach out into their
  surroundings when exposed to water
• Heavy metals are metallic chemical elements that
  have a relatively high density and are toxic or
  poisonous at low concentrations
• Examples are mercury, lead, nickel, arsenic and
  cadmium
• Oil spills accidental, leaks, explosions
• It is estimated that approximately 706 million
  gallons of waste oil enter the ocean every year,
  with over half coming from land drainage and
  waste disposal

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Tracking the BP Oil Spill

• http//www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/01/us/2
  0100501-oil-spill-tracker.html

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(No Transcript)
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What is the result of Pollution?

• Plastic
• Aquatic life can be threatened through
  entanglement, suffocation, and ingestion.
• Fishing nets
• fish, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, dugongs,
  crocodiles, seabirds, crabs, and other creatures,
  restricting movement, causing starvation,
  laceration and infection, and, in those that need
  to return to the surface to breathe, suffocation
• Plastic Additives
• Some plastic additives are known to disrupt the
  endocrine system when consumed, others can
  suppress the immune system or decrease
  reproductive rates
• Oil Spills
• If oil waste reaches the shoreline or coast, it
  interacts with sediments such as beach sand and
  gravel, rocks and boulders, vegetation, and
  terrestrial habitats of both wildlife and humans,
  causing erosion as well as contamination
• Immediate effects include mass mortality and
  contamination of fish and other food species
• Long term effects include poisons the sensitive
  marine and coastal organic substrate,
  interrupting the food chain on which fish and sea
  creatures depend, and on which their reproductive
  success is based

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The North Atlantic Garbage Patch

• is an area of marine debris found floating within
  the North Atlantic Gyre
• estimated to be hundreds of kilometers across in
  size, with a density of over 200,000 pieces of
  debris per square kilometer
• area shifts by as much as 1,600 km north and
  south on a seasonal basis

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The North Pacific Garbage Patch

• is an area of marine debris found floating within
  the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly
  between 135 to 155W and 35 to 42N
• estimates ranging from an area the size of the
  state of Texas to one larger than the continental
  United States
• high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical
  sludge, and other debris that have been trapped
  by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre

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The North Pacific Garbage Patch continued

• In samples taken in 1999, the mass of plastic
  exceeded that of zooplankton (the dominant animal
  life in the area) by a factor of six
• Ninety percent plastic, this debris accumulates
  on the beaches of Midway where it becomes a
  hazard to the bird population of the island.
• Midway Atoll is home to two-thirds (1.5 million)
  of the global population of Laysan Albatross.
• Nearly all of these albatross have plastic in
  their digestive system and one-third of their
  chicks die.

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An Ocean's MemoryThe Endless Voyage Series

• http//learning.aliant.net/Player/ALC_Player.asp?P
  rogIDINT_ENDVOY12
• Answer the Self-test questions after the video
• 27mins

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What is our role in protecting the marine biome?