Marine Pollution
In the first wildlife blog, we touched a bit on pollution and how it is harming our wildlife. And even though it seems like the pandemic is coming to a close, I would like to dive deeper into other human activities and how these activities harm marine ecosystems.
Farming
Farming? What does farming have to do with marine pollution anyways? That is a great question and something I first thought as truly bizarre. Even though farming primarily takes place on land, the practices that occur do affect our marine ecosystems. How? While farmers rely on the nutrients in fertilizers and pesticides, herbicides, and animal waste to cultivate their crops, they come at a cost of harming marine ecosystems. This is because these substances contain high amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus which, when they enter waters, can help create the perfect conditions for algae growth.
Algae? (Part I)
The reason why I would like to talk about algae growth is that while it can serve as food for some organisms, it can also bring great harm. Algae can produce many lethal toxins such as Ciguatera Fish Poisoning (CFP), Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP), and Paralytic Shellfish Poison (PSP). As a result, larger algae blooms tend to be more harmful than smaller ones because they increase the chances of these toxins bioaccumulating -the gradual accumulation of substances in an organism through the process of preying on other organisms- and eventually harming many animals that we know and love such as dolphins. This is due to the fact that only 10% of energy is passed up during one level up of the food chain by means of consumption, but nearly 100% of pollutants are passed through, proving that more pollutants are accumulated proportionally than energy.
So what?
Maybe right now you are thinking as to why im bringing up this topic. First, we need to understand that humans are part of the marine food web. The seafood we eat can include top marine predators -aka the ones with highest amounts of bioaccumulation. Therefore, not only marine organisms are affected by these toxins. Even humans are the risk of becoming poisoned! And for many of these biotoxins, there is no way of telling if your seafood is contaminated. Even cooking your delicious fish in high temperatures cannot denature -the destruction of the characteristic properties of a substance to disable its function- the toxins.
Algae? (Part II)
Another cause and effect of this scenario is that when the algae and these organisms die, bacteria will, most often, be primarily responsible for decomposing: a process that utilizes a significant amount of oxygen, further depleting the waters of oxygen. Unfortunately, as we progress more into industrial expansion and as our population continues to increase, this also spells for increased usage of herbicides and pesticides which will then inevitably make their way into earth’s waters, as well as increased hunting of marine mammals for food and manufacturing purposes. To make matters worse, algae -while they produce oxygen during the day through photosynthesis- also consume oxygen throughout the night through respiration. This means that the oxygen levels are low and therefore many resource species -such as fish- that many marine organisms indirectly or directly rely on will have their life on a knife-edge. Sometimes if the algae bloom gets out of hand, the water could become uninhabitable.
The Mission to Gain More Energy
In modern times, we heavily rely on energy and specifically, electricity. However, the usage of electricity produces CO2 (aka carbon dioxide) which harms our earth’s ozone layer and thus promoting global warming. In addition, most rivers will have dams for hydroelectricity and irrigation. Not only will these dams disrupt habitats, but the now slow river flow will also increase the concentration of chemical runoff, meaning that these rivers will now carry waste. These projects, in fact, directly threaten many marine animals with a great example being the River Dolphin -an endangered species. For example, in our efforts to desalinate water, the remainders of the salty wastewater will go back into oceans and kill many bottom dwelling organisms in the oceans due to its low oxygen content. This process can also raise ocean acidification, destroying coral reefs that many call home. In addition, with our great reliance on oil, future oil spills are inevitably bound to kill a great number of marine wildlife.
Technological Advancements
As technology continues to develop, many transportation vehicles including ferries and freights will become faster, increasing noise pollution and the odds of colliding and killing marine mammals such as whales. Yes, noise can be pollution. Not only can it kill marine mammals similar to car roadkill accidents, the sounds produced by these transportation vehicles can interfere with echolocation, resulting in marine organisms having a harder time communicating with each other and finding food. Sometimes, these marine organisms can get lost from the rest of its group because of their echolocation being not reliable.
As always, thank you for reading this blog. I hope you learned something new today and make sure to share this blog to your friends and family to read! :)
Citations:
[1] “Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP).” Washington State Department of Health, www.doh.wa.gov/CommunityandEnvironment/Shellfish/RecreationalShellfish/Illnesses/Biotoxins/AmnesicShellfishPoisoning.
[2] Anderson, Paul K. “Marine Mammals in the next One Hundred Years: Twilight for a Pleistocene Megafauna?” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 1 Aug. 2001, academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/82/3/623/2372562.
[3] Friedman, Melissa A, et al. “Ciguatera Fish Poisoning: Treatment, Prevention and Management.” Marine Drugs, Molecular Diversity Preservation International, 2008, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579736/.
[4] “Paralytic Shellfish Poison (PSP).” Washington State Department of Health, www.doh.wa.gov/CommunityandEnvironment/Shellfish/RecreationalShellfish/Illnesses/Biotoxins/ParalyticShellfishPoison.