Ross Sea Ecosystem

Antarctica is one of the most rapid warming areas on the Earth, climate change on Antarctica is crucial to the world and the continent itself. Although climate change on Antarctica isn't widespread as it a wide place, only a small amount of impact is taking place. Some areas in Antarctica are experiencing decreases within the sea ice whereas other areas have an increase in sea ice. Both changes are causing negative impacts on wildlife. (Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, 2014) Climate change has been a continuing scientific curiosity. Climate change is raising many concerns on not only the environmental and regulatory concerns but also within the economy, health, security, safety, and food production. (UNEP, 2009)

In this episode of the BBC Documentary series, “The Blue Planet: Coral Sea” examines the roles and effects of coral reefs on other marine species. Coral reefs play a major part in the marine food web since they are responsible for about one quarter of all ocean species. Coral reefs are one of the most diversified species in the marine, even though they only covered a tiny portion of the earth. This species can reproduce both asexual and sexual. In sexual reproduction, larva is developed through egg and sperm fertilization. On the other hand in asexual reproduction, they can clone themselves through budding or fragmentation. Coral reefs, however, has been threatening due to overfishing, pollution, climate change, increasing in ocean acidity

Overfishing is a death sentence to the world’s oceans. As technology continues to improve a great deal of fish can be caught quicker; but at what cost? The effects of overfishing can lead to the extinction of not just the animals being fished, but also the predators that rely on fish to eat. Ninety percent of the ocean’s largest animals have been wiped out due to overfishing (“Overfishing- A Global Disaster”, 2011). National Geographic cites the academic journal Science (2006) that predicts by 2048, all fisheries will collapse due to lack of ocean wildlife. Fish are not the only animal caught in the nets used by fishing vessels. Often animals such as dolphins, sharks, turtles, and seabirds are

Kathy Conlan is an expert in understanding the weird and wonderful world of marine creatures that live deep under the Arctic ice. She specializes in marine benthic biology and amphipod systematics. Kathy studies how human and natural changes affect marine life in the Arctic and Antarctic, the effects of pollution on marine life as well as global warming. She is past chief officer for Life Sciences in the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and is a judge for SCAR’s Martha T. Muse Prize for Science and policy in Antarctica, represents Canada for the Canadian Committee on Antarctic Research, taught at Huntsman Marine Science Centre and Students On Ice, mentors university students and gives speaches and “Show and tells” at the museum.

The earth’s oceans are overfished. Nearly 80 percent of commercial fisheries are overexploited and some experts believe that global fisheries will completely collapse by 2048 (Barkin page 1). While these are just facts that tell the worst-case scenario, they should be alarms that spark change in the way we fish. This paper, however, will specifically target overfishing in the Grand Banks in Newfoundland, Canada, and analyze its impact on Earth, its Environment and Humanity. Over fishing is simply when fishermen catch more fish than are being reproduced. Eventually the stock of fish in the environment will be completely depleted. That is exactly what happened off the shores of Newfoundland in 1992. With Cod fishing at an all time high, the Canadian government discovered that the Cod population was almost exhausted. New technology and poor decision-making led to the complete destruction of the cod population in the Grand Banks and this is a mistake that we should never repeat.

In the last few decades, various marine species of Antarctic ecosystem have been brought close to extinction because of human activities in various forms such as pollution from sewage and other contaminants, overfishing and other mixed activities and

The Atlantic cod fishery collapse left terrible ecological consequences. As mentioned above, the fishing technology was a major destruction to the ecological system by using deployment and draggers. The huge nets that were dropped and dragged along the bottom of the ocean destroyed the underlying eco-system in the process. The effect of selective fishing on spawning grounds – that is, selectively over-exploiting one species in an ecosystem – had disastrous effect on the feeding relationships in that ecosystem. This contributes to the overall reduction of spawning stock biomass of the targeted species, but also an increase in the number of invertebrate and vertebrate predators such as crustacean and fish which will prey on cod eggs, larvae, and younger fish. It is a little wonder that a species like cod, would eventually run into difficulties struggling to survive when its habitat is being continuously destroyed and the balance of their food chain had been wiped out.

According to the statistics shown in Stock size of bêche-de-mer, and recruitment patterns and gene flow in black teatfish, and recovery of overfished black teatfish stocks on the Great Barrier Reef by John Benzie and Sven Uthicke, “bêche-de-mer fishing on the Great Barrier Reef had led to a reduction in black teatfish densities of at least 75 % on recently fished reefs” (58). Similar results are found through model calculations on black teatfish stock, indicating that “the amount of biomass, which virginally was in the order of 5,500t and about 5 million individuals, had reduced around 3000t” (61). Due to heavy loss in black teatfish population, fishery on this species in Queensland area was closed in 1998. However, in 2003, when researchers compared the densities of such species between open and closed zones, they found no statistically significant differences, an outcome referring to low recruitment

The Deep sea ecosystem has been classified as the largest ecosystem compared to all other ecosystems within the world (Martin, 2003). The main characteristics of this ecosystem is that it experiences very low oxygen levels, the water temperature is extremely cold, the pressure within this area is very high and sunlight do not penetrate to these depths. The species that do live within this environment are highly adapted to these harsh conditions such as the Cookie-cutter Shark (Isistius brasiliensis) (Figure 02). This essay will mainly focus on the Cookie-cutter Shark as well as

Developing organizations, such as The Ocean Agency and the Coral Restoration Foundation, have been raising concern in efforts to conserve and furthermore sustain aquatic life and the ecosystem in which they inhabit. These unique fish, found living and populating among the coral reef, face a level of degradation and life threatening obstacles. The coral reef acts as a home to more than a quarter of the know fish species, where their population and species have been widely studied. This ecosystem is a beautiful representation of life which supports, and is supported by other neighboring ecosystems; embodying a significance as the leading consumer item for those who live along the reefs. Their importance to our planets collective ecosystem is not fully understood, due to the way these ecosystems are interconnected to one another, but nevertheless illustrates an example of a struggling life which may provide problems for both terrestrial and aquatic life-forms. Aside from the human dependency, being that “More than 450 million people live within 60 kilometers of coral reefs, with the majority directly or

The purpose of this study was to see whether or not seasons would affect the abundance and size of flatfish species. The hypothesis presented throughout the experiment was that seasonal effect would be present in the flatfishes that were being tested. This hypothesis was made because of the fact that there is a difference in spawning around the year within flatfish species.

A study that was created by Florida Institute of Technology, talked about how the king crabs who could hurt the ecosystem because of the warming waters. From the Antarctic Peninsula warming up is letting the king crabs go from their deep sea homes to the shallow waters. The land creatures will not know what to do if the crabs came up to the surface. With the other creatures, they never had seen crustaceans because they have been in the deep sea. With the data that was collected, it could not be proven that the crustaceans will move to surface. Researchers also found nothing that could stop the king crabs from coming up to the shallow waters even if it got warm. To prove the hypothesis, the hypothesis had to be tested. The researchers who worked

This information is incredibly alarming as lionfish are a generalist species, consume a great variety of prey, lack predators and disease in their invaded range, as well as possess venomous spines (Albins, 2015; Albins & Hixon, 2013; Bayraktarov et al., 2014; Bejarano et al., 2015; Carberry, 2014; Cote et al., 2013; Cure, McIlwain, & Hixon, 2014; Edwards et al., 2014; S. Green, 2014; Jud et al., 2015; Valdivia, Bruno, Cox, Hackerott, & Green, 2014). These factors strongly suggest lionfish have the potential to degrade coral reef habitat and water quality, decrease biodiversity, deplete economically important fish stocks, and decrease tourism (Albins & Hixon, 2013; Cure et al., 2014; Morell, 2010; Ruiz-Carus et al., 2006; Valdivia et al.,

Me and my crew here on the waves of the Antarctic sea have not seen nor tracked any signs of a blue whale since our scientific equipment became operational two weeks ago. The blue whale, the largest animal on planet Earth, has been labeled as endangered on the conservation status chart for more than fifty years and has yet to change. Ever since the banning of blue whale hunting in 1966, blue whales have not increased in population at the rate we have predicted. To this day, even with all the limits hunters have on the ocean, blue whales struggle with accidental beaching and ship collisions.

In order for there to be plenty of fish in the years ahead, fisheries will have to develop sustainable fisheries and some will have to close. Due to the constant increase in the human population, the oceans have been overfished with a resulting decline of fish crucial to the economy and communities of the world. The control of the world's fisheries is a controversial subject, as they cannot produce enough to satisfy the demand, especially when there aren't enough fish left to breed in healthy ecosystems. Scientists are often in the role of fisheries managers and must regulate the amount of fishing in the oceans, a position not popular with those who have to make a living fishing ever decreasing populations.