Influence Of Natural Disasters On Marine Life

The ocean vast and wide waters give home to thousands of marine animals which rely on the constant condition of the sea salted ocean. They take home and live their everyday lives, and abide by Drawns law of natural selection. Only those organisms who can adapt and survive the harsh conditions of water are able to mate and past their adaptations to the next generation. Marine life have to tackle and adapt against pollution, natural disasters, urbanization, predators, and climate change.

Underwater sea life requires intense and advanced characteristics from each species in order to survive against various elements that are continually trying to eliminate life altogether on this planet.

Many Marine animals are directly affected by the pollution caused by humans, around 1.15 to 2.41 million tons of plastic enters the ocean each year from use rivers. Weather it’s littering or factory pollution, humans have a direct effect on marine animals every day. In the great pacific there is a large patch of just trash (MLA CITATION) which continues to flood with trash every day.

Marine animals will mistake the trash for food, and every year, roughly 100,000 marine animals will die from trash-related accidents. Many times Oil Tankers spill large amounts of Oil into the oceans, like the Exxon Valdez in 1989 which devastated the marine and land animals in the area. 11 million gallons of its 53-million-gallon cargo of crude oil, killing an estimated 900 bald eagles, 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals and uncounted fish and invertebrates.

Massive cleanup efforts removed much of the visible crude oil within a year, but the slow release of the remaining oil has continued to affect populations of local marine plants and animals to this day.

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(MLA Citation) Wiping out entire ecosystems, oil spills affect marine animals on a large scale, caught in massive death, living in these conditions many animals not only marine will die. Accidents caused by human development create these dangers for marine animals, many marine animals who are unable to escape its grasp. However they face another danger that comes from the heart of our cities carried by our transportation, marine animals as well as the world in a whole, Carbon dioxide emissions are causing the acidification of oceans at the fastest rate in 30 million years, threatening the survival of countless species along marine food chains. (MLA CITATION).

These are only one aspect of the life of Marine life, as they encounter other threats, and some are victims to natural disasters that happen overseas. Hurricanes, tsunamis, typhoons, and other natural disasters leave a mark on whatever it touches and effects other regions. The Oceans are not safe either, even for fish who live closer to the surface, or any marine plants during these events. Typhoons cause some of the most damage to life underneath, and a times can nutrients or change the current inhabited of the region. Proof of this was when “In August 1997, 808 pieces weighing 60,930 g were washed up following passage of Typhoon Victor.” (MLA CITATION) This was mostly coral which was wasted up to the beaches, which were also ripped apart in the Typhoon, however large amounts of sediment wasted up, as well as the change in Saltiness due to sediment.

When “Dramatically lowered salinities in the bay during July and August 1997 may have affected this change in relative dominance.” (MLA CITATION) Although natural disasters can destroy life, it gives new way to new populations, and removes stressed populations. Typhoons are not the only disaster that brings destruction and life at the same time. Y. “Tsunamis can completely engulf an entire It erodes seafloor sediments and can devastate the benthic – sea bottom – ecosystems on the seafloor. These are usually invertebrates like crustaceans, worms and snails that burrow through seafloor sediments and mix them.” (MLA CITATION) Entire ecosystems ripped in only a matter of seconds, changing the entire area and possible bring other species into the mixed brought by the debri and sediment from the tsunami. Even as the tsunami brings destruction, it brings sediment and nutrient for the next chapter. Hurricanes also bring the same dish to the table, ripping anything apart that it can, and more so that often, changed the temperature and normal salt levels which kills many of the existing marine life.

“Slow-moving fish and turtles and shellfish beds are often decimated by the rough undercurrents and rapid changes in water temperature and salinity wrought by a hurricane. Sharks, whales, and other large animals swiftly move to calmer waters” (MLA CITATION) Although this is the case for most natural disasters. Most Marine animals will not have to worry about natural disasters in there life, since they have to survive every day to stay alive in the food chain. Many ecosystems revolve around each other, as the small zooplankton is a part of the food chain as a massive Kill Whale is to an ecosystem. Each animals fight for energy, as the life which has less energy is small and greater in numbers that those of bigger energy, which if predators, have smaller numbers, competing against other predators or prey.

They define each animal in different categories that corresponds to there natural eating habits. Producer, Primary Consumers, Secondary Consumer, Tertiary Consumer, and Quaternary Consumer are categories which animals are put into in order to define where they belong in a food chain. Some animals are crucial to an ecosystem survive, energy which a region or area could not get elsewise without it. In the same way that an arch collapses when the keystone is removed, an entire food chain can collapse if there is a decline in a keystone species.

Often, the keystone species is a predator that keeps the herbivores in check, and prevents them from overconsuming the plants, leading to a massive die off.” (MLA CITATION) Keystone species play an important role, weather its food, or the ability to decrease a population due to being a natural predator. “The sea otter is another example of a keystone species in the Pacific Northwest. These mammals feed on sea urchins, controlling their population. If the otters didn’t eat the urchins, the urchins would eat up the habitat’s kelp” (MLA CITATION) Like the otters, predators serve another purpose than to just eat, they control populations and kill off sick fish before they containiate the other fish.