Ocean pollution has been going on for a very long time but efforts are being made to fix this mess. Given that this problem has been a plague to modern environmentalist and the damage has been rather extensive, ever wondered how has the ecosystem been affected over the years?
Death of aquatic life
Up till the year 2010 there is an estimated 15,304 species of fish and 194,696 to 214,696 species of animals and plants. These species are at risk of extinction due to ocean pollution and human activity. whether it's oil spills or synthetic waste such as plastic floating around in the water, these creatures are slowly dying out due to the negligence of humans. Leather back Turtles are an example of animals that are at risk of extinction due to ocean waste, Plastic bags floating in the sea is mistaken by these animals as jellyfish as their diet because these species of turtles only eats soft and gelatinous prey(SEE Turtles, 2016).
Disruption of food-chain
This is a direct result of the death of aquatic life. Pollutants such as lead and cadmium are consumed by zooplankton which are in turn consumed by fish and shell fish and the food chain continues with the pollutant transferring from one organism to another because heavy metals cannot be metabolized so these pollutants will in turn bind with cellular components in the body and retard their functions. These will in turn cause the deterioration of health in both the aquatic animals and humans who consume them. Also the pollutants will slowly kill off zooplankton which are essential to the food chain as zooplankton makes up for a majority of the diet of marine animals and if zooplankton die out fishes will slowly die off which will cause the disruption(Hill, 2016).
Destruction of an ecosystem
As the natural food chain gets affected due to the death of members of the food-chain, the larger food web will get affected because these organism are interlinked with one another and their interaction with one another keeps the balance of their population as these organisms have a prey and predator relationship (Eschooltoday.com, 2016). For example if zooplanktons were to die out, the smaller fishes that preys on zooplanktons will reduce in number and the fishes the preys on smaller fishes will dwindle in number and so on and so forth. Overtime this disparity will start to showing in the form of species of fishes slowly migrating elsewhere or going extinct entirely, larger predatory fishes or animals population will be reduced, and humans who rely on these organisms for survival will have their livelihoods affected.
written by: Benjamin
References
- Hill, H. (2016). A Brief Guide about The food chain. [online] Earthuntouched.com. Available at: http://earthuntouched.com/food-chain-disruption-animal-population/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2016].
- Eschooltoday.com. (2016). What are the effects of water pollution. [online] Available at: http://eschooltoday.com/pollution/water-pollution/effects-of-water-pollution.html [Accessed 12 Nov. 2016].
- SEE Turtles. (2016). Ocean Pollution. [online] Available at: http://www.seeturtles.org/ocean-pollution [Accessed 12 Nov. 2016].
