Recently, there has been increasing evidence of global environmental changes such as rapid Arctic ice melting at an unprecedented rate and increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Rapid changes in environmental conditions cause large impacts on nature, including different species of animals.
What are some of these species affected by changes in their environment?
1. Carbon dioxide emissions have increased the acidity of oceans, thus affecting the SEA OTTER’s food sources– clams, urchins and abalones are unable to produce their carbonate shells.
A sea otter swimming Mike Baird via Wikimedia Commons
2.Warming, acidifying waters affect the CORALS because it causes destruction of their habitat and coral bleaching. Bleaching occurs when zooxanthellae algae decrease in their photosynthesis pigments and fail to provide oxygen for the coral.
Coral by NOAA Photo Library via Wikimedia Commons
3. One of the smallest whales present in the Arctic, the BELUGA WHALE, has a melon shaped head and a broad beak. Their abundance has decreased due to melting ice sheets and human intrusion by boats.
Beluga at Vancouver Aquarium taken by Stan Shebs via Wikimedia Commons
4. The KOALA BEAR acquires nutrients from EUCALYPTUS TREE leaves, however, increasing CO2 levels in atmosphere have affected the quality of the leaves being produced.
A Koala bear crawling by Thomasgl via Wikimedia Commons
Eucalyptus Tree by Jeantosti via Wikimedia Commons
So what are some steps that we can take to slow down the rate of environmental destruction?
We can decrease the use of energy and simply being aware of what changes are happening around the world.
Losing any kind of species causes imbalance to the ecosystem and is not very good news for life on Earth. Though we cannot easily reverse the damage done to these environments, the steps noted above can definitely contribute to helping to lessen the amount of species extinctions.
-Candy KT Fu
