We always seem to talk about how climate change will affect our own species, since this is a topic of constant debate one of the ways to make climate change more important in the eyes of the public is to show how it will directly affect you, the viewer. What we do not seem to talk about as much on televised broadcasts is how climate change could affect the animals around us.
When you were in high school do you remember learning about the interconnected web that holds ecosystems together in your basic level biology classes? Well, according to the national geographic definition a food web is a a interconnected system of food chains. Every animal is a part of multiple food chains which connects all the food chains together. The tricky thing about that is that if one of the prey’s population decreases then the predators that consume that prey also decrease as their food source depletes. If one of the predator species population decreases the prey species could multiply out of control without a way to decrease their population.
You are probably thinking… Bel, what does this have to do with Climate Change? Well, one of the staple effects we have seen around the world from the increase in ocean temperature is the bleaching of the reef within it. The World Wildlife fund explains that coral bleaching occurs when coral loses its color due to the expulsion of an algae, zooxanthellae, at high temperature. If the temperature does not lower then the coral does not allow the algae to return which breaks the symbiotic relationship and will kill the coral. Corals are home to the most diverse ocean ecosystems and if the coral reefs die off, there will be no where for these animals to call home. from 2014 to 2017, 75% of all tropical coral reefs were bleached and 30% were killed due to the extensive heat.
Coral is just one example of a organism that is impacted by the effects of climate change. This article describes some of the impacts on other animals that climate change has.
2 Comments
The beginning of your post immediately made me think of drawing and coloring food chains and food webs for my elementary school science classes! I would always include sea animals and plants in my chains and webs because I love the ocean. I didn’t know anything about coral reef bleaching before reading your post, but it definitely sounds like a serious issue that needs some attention.
I found it very interesting that one of the main reasons we never hear about the effects of climate change on other animals is largely due to the fact that appealing to our own survival instincts is one of the biggest persuasive strategies that scientists and activists use to bring attention to climate change. This is quite unfortunate since the impact that climate change has on so many ecosystems is very severe and will only get worse in the future if widespread changes in climate policy are not implemented.