Ocean Acidification Causes, Effects, & Examples: Top 10 List

December 3, 2016 in Animals & Insects, Geology & Climate

Ocean acidification is the process by which oceanic waters progressively become more and more acidic, mostly as a result of absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide. To put that another way, as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increase, the process of ocean acidification will increase as well. To a point anyways.

Acidic in this case is actually something of a slight misnomer, though, as the “acidification” is actually more of a move to pH-neutral conditions, from the generally slightly basic (pH >7) condition’s of the earth’s oceans.

This move to pH-neutral conditions will have a profound impact on the myriad lifeforms found within the oceans though, as witnessed during previous ocean acidification events such as “The Great Dying” (~252 million years ago), rather than being a trivial process.

Impacts that can be reliably expected are: major changes to plankton distribution, types, and numbers; increasingly common mass coral bleaching events; associated extinctions; depressed metabolic rates and immunity in some types of marine animals, as well as behavioral changes; fishery collapses; and increasingly common red tide events.

To go back over that earlier point a bit more — seawater is generally slightly basic (pH>7), as it absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, or from elsewhere (carbon seeps, etc), some of the absorbed CO2 reacts to form carbonic acid (H2CO3), and leads as well to carbonate (HCO3−) and bicarbonate (CO32−) formation. The carbonate and bicarbonate formation results in increased hydrogen ion (H+) concentrations in the ocean water (acidity) — as they are the “leftovers” of the formation process.
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Tags: carbon dioxide, Climate change, coral bleaching, corals, diatoms, end-Permian mass extinction, Extinction, fishery collapse, Great Barrier Reef, ocean acidification, phytoplankton, red tide, the Great Dying
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Ocean Acidification Effects, Causes, & Examples List Part 2

December 3, 2016 in Animals & Insects, Geology & Climate

(This is Part 2 of the Ocean Acidification Causes, Effects, & Examples: Top 10 List, which had to be split in order to load properly. Click through to that article to read the introduction, and items 1 through 4 of the list.)

Increase In Red Tide Events

A likely co-occurrence with increasing ocean acidification will be increasingly common red tide events. That is, increasingly common and extensive blooms of the various dinoflagellates responsible for “red tides.”

An increase in these events will of course see an increase in the accumulation of associated toxins (domoic acid, saxitoxin, brevetoxin) in marine animals — and thus an increase in the marine mass mortality events that accompany this. Also, paralytic and neurotoxic shellfish poisoning will become more common as well.
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Tags: Climate change, coral bleaching, end-Permian mass extinction, Extinction, Great Barrier Reef, ocean acidification, oysters, the Great Dying
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Extinction, Mass Extinctions, Extinct Species, And The Ongoing 6th Great Mass Extinction

March 7, 2013 in Animals & Insects, Fossils, Humans, Plants

Extinction is the process by which a species, genus, or family, becomes extinct — no longer existing and living in the world. It is the abolition and annihilation of something that previously existed in the world. In the case of biology, it refers specifically to the end of an evolutionary line, or a branch on the tree of life.

The actual moment of extinction is considered to be when the last individual representative of a species or group is no longer living. But functional extinction can occur considerably earlier than that — as the result of loss of genetic diversity, range, and/or the ability for a population to breed and recover.

Most types of life, especially animals, are closely tied to their ecological niches and environments. With a loss of their living environment, and its accompanying species, extinction is almost inevitable for many types of life. Species diversification and emergence typically doesn’t occur in these circumstances, it usually happens within healthy ecosystems. The long-period of time that follows large extinction events when no new species emerge is referred to as a dead zone .

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Tags: 6th extinction event, 6th great mass extinction event, Aiolornis incredibilis, Anthropocene mass extinction, bee extinct, bison latifrons, Camelops, causes of extinction, civilization extinction, climate change extinctions, deforestation extinct animals, deforestation extinction, dire wolf, effects of extinction, Elasmotherium extinction, End Cretaceous mass extinction, end-Permian mass extinction, endangered animals, extinct animals, extinct megafauna animals, extinct plants, extinct species, Extinction, extinction event, giant armadillo, giant kangaroo, Holocene mass extinction, Homotherium, human extinction, Irish Elk, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, keystone species, Macoun's Shining Moss, mass extinctions, megafauna mass extinction, Megalania, Meiolania, Miracinonyx, Moa, Oncorhynchus rastrosus, Ornimegalonyx, over-fishing extinctions, over-hunting extinction, Panthera leo atrox, saber tooth salmon, saber-toothed cats, Sivatherium, sixth great mass extinction event, Smilodon extinction, Stellar's Sea Cow, Tasmania thylacine, Tasmanian tiger, the American cheetah, the American lion, the Haast's eagle, Thylacine extinct, Tyrant Sea Bear, unicorn extinction, Wonambi
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