Javier Fuertes

Brandi Bradley
ENc2135
February 16, 2016

Worlds Oceans affected

They cover Seventy one percent of the earths surface, and cover roughly
ninety six percent of the earths surface water. It contains such a wide variety of life
that we have not even began to identify all of the species that could be found in
them. Yes, the Global Oceans are easily the biggest, most complex, and
misunderstood ecosystems today. The strong willed few that attempt to uncover all
the secrets of the oceans, Marine biologists make it their life work to study how
these large ecosystems and the life inside of these ecosystems work and survive. It
is a worldwide community whom of which are very passionate in what they do and
with newer, more modern technology Marine biologists are starting to discover more
than we have ever known. This new technology has allowed them to be able to even
track the water characteristics like water flow, eater temperature, and chemical
composition and how all of this affects the fish population (Hulmes). But as human
technology has grown to study the oceans and go deeper than ever before so has
the effect of human interaction of the worlds oceans and fish populations grown.
Many aspects created by humans like pollution and climate change, overfishing, and
reef destruction tends to affect these delicate ecosystems in severely different
ways.
It is undoubtedly a given that the ocean for humans is one of, if not the
biggest most exploited resource known to man today. The majority of the worlds

population lives on ocean coasts and it has been a vital part of human history since
the beginning of time. Every coast and every ocean has provided humans with a
constant food source, a trading medium for nations, and even in some instances it
affects weather in certain regions. Before recent history even though the ocean was
a prominent part of everyones life much was misunderstood before the marine
biology community. The worldwide marine biology community is a community who
took this big unknown entity and began to explore its secrets. This Marine biology
community is a scientific community who are heavily taught in the structure and life
of the earths bodies of water. Joining this prestigious community is not like any
other where you are simply accepted. A marine biologist must undergo years of
schooling and has to obtain degrees in many different biological sciences. As Hums
explains All marine biologists should have a basic foundation in zoology or botany
(preferably both), general physics, general and organic chemistry, mathematics,
and statistics (Humes 152). After this undergraduate track Marine biologist must
receive graduate school training and then eventually be trained on field to become
a successful marine biologist in this field. So it easy to see just how hard it really is
to become part of this extensive scientific community.
When finally out of school these scientists often seem to have a wide variety
of jobs that could be done in their required field. Many entry level jobs include a
research assistant or a technical assistant. When you tend to reach the higher Ph.D.
jobs then you start looking at people that are Zoologists or most commonly are
conducting or opening a research in a wide variety of topics in the ocean for any
company that wishes to gain intelligence about the worlds oceans and their
inhabitants. The biologist that often conduct research are usually specialized in
different aspects whether it be anywhere from the studying the chemical makeup of

the water and its flows to examining all kinds of life from the smallest of sea
planking to the largest mammals that inhabit our waters.
As many if not all Current researcher in recent history have been able to
develop better explanations or conduct better experiments today than whatever
anything ever seen before. With these advanced tools they have been able to
descend to the depths with scuba equipment or better study the chemical change.
But With all of these tools Marine biologists all agree on one thing, that the
inhabitants of the ocean are being directly affected by the advancement of global
technological advances and interference by proportion .
Harvesting from the ocean has taken place since the beginning of recorded
history. Brave fishermen would often travel in to the slightly less unknown ocean at
that time and risk their lives to provide for their village to survive financially. But as
time passes technological advances help our species develop more advanced ways
of harvesting nutrition in forms of life through the ocean. Just As humans tend to
exploit other resources in the planet , Biologists have been reporting that
overfishing and a destruction of the natural balance of the populations food chain is
begging to wreak havoc on the population of not only the population of the targeted
species but that of others that are needed to keep balance. We can find examples of
overfishing in todays world if we look across too Asian American countries today.
In China an expensive delicacy name Shark fin soup is single handedly
destroying the shark population as a whole. This is a high end dish worth
approximately one hundred dollars in high end restaurants. With the increasing
popularity of this food item fisheries have developed whose main mission is to catch
thousands of sharks slaughter them just for their fins and actually throw the

remains back into the water. The even more grotesque problem that we are facing is
that commercial fisheries are going outside their regions to try and kill sharks in all
parts of the globe. Even in the United States this is becoming a problem as wellintentioned law has hardly shut down the fin trade, even among U.S. crews, as
evidenced by the Coast Guard's recent seizure of the Honolulu-based King Diamond
II. When law enforcement officials boarded the 84-foot vessel in waters 350 miles off
Acapulco, Mexico, they found it carried 32 tons of fins and no other shark partsprima facie evidence of illegal plunder, federal attorneys contend (Raloff 232).
Sharks like many other predatorily animals in the ocean animal kingdom are
becoming increasingly hunted down due to profit and intrinsic value. The biggest
problem with the exploitation of top predators is that they provide a special place in
the ecosystems that keep the rest of the food chain in balance. Without this
overpopulation of the next species down will increase causing the chain to be
disrupted and eventually for the ecosystem to dissolve. This can be shown in places
where the very top predator, sharks have legally allowed to be harvested without
regulation where in a few years the fisheries do not exist anymore and this deplete
food resources for the general public.(Raloff 232). But biologists and
conservationists have begun working towards ways to combat this epidemic of
overfishing. For instance new technology is starting to be developed to be able to
create artificial shark fins (Kwan 367). This would save millions of sharks by allowing
the same taste of shark without having to go kill thousands of them for their fins.
Also strict conservation and bag laws are being implemented in counties around the
world with active fisheries. These laws prevent boats from catching too many fish or
fish too small and in this effort helps conserve the fish population for years to come.

A large issue with not only the oceans but also with the earth as a whole is
the threat of pollution and climate change. While many argue about the validity of
climate change scientist as a whole agree that climate change is in fact occurring
today in ur society and is in fact affecting our earths natural systems This worlds
ocean are no exception, climate change, combined with pollution are negatively
affecting the makeup of the water quality which the ultimately harms the
inhabitants of this ecosystem. Maria brine explains the rise of the oceans
temperature through Carbon dioxide levels, a multistressor world where stressor
levels are, and will continue to be, exacerbated by global warming and increased
atmospheric carbon dioxide. These changes are causing the oceans to warm
decrease in pH, become hypercapnic, and to become less saturated in carbonate
minerals (Byrne 582). Now the change in temperature and pH levels of the waters
makes the future for predicting how the living organisms will react unsure. As
One of the primary reasons for any population decrease with any species
(Land/water) is the loss of habitat. When speaking in terms of fish population the
highest concentration of fish can be found on our earths aquatic coral reefs. Now
coral reefs being living organisms themselves are very fragile in their current state.
Many factors created by human involvement tent to effect the health of these
ecosystems that contain so much life. Some of these are natural factors like Tropical
storms or a large predator outbreak. But the bulk of the destruction comes through
human doing including, Pollution through sewage into the ocean, Global warming
which leads to coral bleaching, and a high tourist population who manually destroy
these fragile ecosystem structures. (Sebens115).
The act of coral bleaching is when a large portion of the living coral is
affected in a stressful environment and eventually dies by turning white and

breaking away. In a chemical sense Bleaching occurs when symbiotic algae

(zooxanthellae) are lost from the gastrodermaltissues of a host organism
(corals,anemones, zoanthids, octocorals, etc),sometimes accompanied by loss of
host gastrodermal cells (Muscatine et al, 1993)(Sebens 122). The first common
way in which this happens is naturally through a heavy storm. As seen in 1983 large
coral reef rock bed turned white and bleached on the pacific coast of Panama after a
massive ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) which cause temperature surges and
in turn destroyed much coral (Sebens 122). The second cause of widespread coral
bleaching can be directly correlate to global warming. In the Caribbean during the
early 1990s widespread coral bleaching was occurring at an alarming rate. This was
happening at a time where the temperature was on average was two degrees
Celsius higher than the norm. This would eventually lead to a scare that massive
destruction would come due to Global Warming (Sebens 122).
Historically speaking regions in which have a large population density also
have a high rate of pollution and reef destruction. Tourists and divers in general
provide an outside threat to these ecosystems then reefs who are located in more
remote areas of the globe. This is not coincidence but more of an inverse
correlation. The introduction of a human interaction puts stress on these reefs and
harms them in many different ways. The removal of Coral and fish little by little
destroy what once used to be a whole ecosystem and little by little with destroy the
balance that it sustains. Also pollution from the coast interacts with the coral itself
to cause harm. There are a wide variety of different pollutions that come from the
coast to do harm. These include oil spills, industrial pollution sources, pesticides and
herbicides, and increasing pollution coming from offshore sewage draining (Sebens
127). Even though all of these elements of pollution seem to affect the coral reefs

negatively the one that most impacts these reefs are the constant draining of
sewage into costal waters. Sebens explains how the process of sewage pollution in
places like Hawaii, Barbados, and Australia is a sort of catch-22 because Increased
nutrients (inorganic and organic nitrogen and phosphorus compounds) may initially
benefit corals, for which they can be limiting to growth, but these nutrients benefit
macroalgae as well and the latter have much higher tissue growth rates. The result
is algal overgrowth and damage to existing corals and a reduction of surface area
available for coral recruitment(Sebens 127).
It is said that if the trends continue to appear that coral reefs are in fact
becoming diminished within the 21st century that it could take thousands of years to
recuperate. So what do we do as a society from keeping this from happening? Well
other than very basic anti-pollution conservation steps some marine biologists have
taken it upon themselves to fix this problem of the destruction in the Ishigaki, Japan.
Here Marine biologists restore areas previously affected by coral bleaching by
placing artificial reefs in their spots. The process goes that they would drop large
metal cages with handmade discs inside in areas where some living coral still
existed right before a spawning season. After some coral would start growing after
spawning season they transferred the cage to a lagoon for 18 months to mature.
Then once the disks are covered in coral they are places in areas where widespread
bleaching has occurred (Normile 559). Another country in close proximity, the
Philippines set out to restore reefs in a different kind of way. Edgardo Gomez, a
marine biologist at the University of the Philippines in Dili oce said that "At the end
of the day, [reefrestoration] has got to be something low-cost and low-tech that
involves the local communities"(Normile 560). This is just the process in which the
People of the coastal city of Bolinao of the Philippines used when the tied existing

coral to large pieces of plywood and broke them off to start a restoration process on
their coast. This could be a scientific breakthrough where coral reefs are being
bleached over and If done properly can really save the coral reef population as a
whole whether done scientifically or very inexpensive like the people of Bolinao.
Marine biologists face some of the biggest questions on the planet today.
They indulge themselves in this whole different world that we have only begun to
scratch the surface of. They are also faced with the issue of the ever changing
ocean. It is hard to ignore that things are changing and that humans are behind
most of these changes. They have to investigate the issues of climate change,
overfishing and reef destruction as well as well as make people aware. They are as
important as the issue itself because without motivation there cannot be change