The problem is the levels of CO2 are too high and the volume getting absorbed by the sea is impacting pH levels. Discarded fishing nets get all sorts of creatures tangled in them, fish, turtles, and seabirds eat microplastics mistaken for food. Every year the ingestion of these products leads to a long-winded and horrible death to millions of animals.
Furthermore, many of these animals consuming plastics are actually in our food chain, so our waste comes back to poison us too. Eutrophication is a process when the water body has an increase in chemical nutrient concentration. This can spike the growth of plants or, more often than not, where pollution is concerned, cause mass decay, reducing oxygen levels in the water. Human activities can generate a lot of noise within the oceans from sources such as seismic surveys, oil exploration, sonar, and mass cargo shipping.
These toxins enter the bodies of all forms of the marine life food chain and ultimately end up causing disease and death. Of course, we are within this food chain as the apex predator, meaning we are also consuming these biomagnified toxins from our food. China is ranked 1 for mismanaged waste and plastics; however, the US is in the top 20 with a more significant waste per person contributions.
Back in , China was responsible for 8. Other ocean pollution by country statistics from the same report show 3. In comparison, the United States has million people living there with 0. Shockingly, at the time of the report in , both China and Indonesia accounted for over a third of the planet's plastic waste, according to the Wall Street Journal. The ocean pollution statistics by country report comes from a team of researchers from Australia and the United States led by Jenna Jambeck.
An estimated 8 Million tons of plastic enters our oceans every year. By , the pollution of fish will be outnumbered by our dumped plastics. Ocean crusaders estimate there to be 46, plastic pieces in our waters per mile squared. Other than incinerated plastics, the entire volume we ever created is still on our planet in some form. Plastic bags are illegal in Kenya. How long does plastic last in the ocean?
Well, plastic was only invented in , and mass production started between s and s. In terms of the effects of plastic pollution on m arine life - These plastics floating in our ocean or sinking to the bottom and turning into microfibers are particularly hazardous to fish, mammals, and sea life in general.
They absorb toxins and chemicals from other forms of water pollution to become even more dangerous to the animals ingesting them.
We produce , chemicals commercially — all of which threaten the ocean through transport accidents and leaking into the soil or atmosphere to reach the sea. The gas and oil industry releases greenhouse gases and causes thousands of spills annually. In the Baltic sea alone, there are over alien species impacting marine life. Coastal areas get significantly impacted by fertilizer runoff from lawns and farms.
These nutrients cause algal blooms to flourish and dissolve the water's oxygen levels. These harmful algal-based blooms have tripled since , closing beaches and killing fish. Annually, the Mississippi River flows 1. The U. Scientists gathered information on the movement and habitats of both predators and prey in order to better understand how they interact.
They also explored much smaller organisms, such as Antarctic microbes, which help to produce and move energy and nutrients, an effort that impacts much larger organisms.
CAML scientists found that cold-loving species are huddling closer to the cold water at both poles as warm ocean water spreads. There are also areas of the Arctic that have recently been exposed to sunlight for the first time in , years as ice sheets melt.
Researchers believe that when Antarctic ice expands, parts of the chilly waters are cut off from the rest of the ocean by the ice, giving species the chance to evolve.
Once the iced-off areas are free, these animals can take off toward warmer waters where they increase the variety of species. Understanding changes like this that have occurred in the past can help scientists to predict more clearly what might happen in the future with a warming climate. Most of the life in the ocean we can't see with the naked eye: microbes. In addition to the microscopic viruses, bacteria and other microbes are the plankton, tiny plants phytoplankton and animals zooplankton that drift with the ocean currents.
What is in the ocean water that you might gulp by mistake while taking a swim? The Census found that the average liter of ocean water holds around 38, kinds of microbial bacteria. The group is made up of viral particles, bacteria and other single-celled life. They pull carbon from rocks and make it available to other organisms, form the base of the marine food web, and produce much of the oxygen that we breathe.
Because their diversity is almost beyond measure, there are large gaps in knowledge about these abundant and tiny organisms. ICOMM scientists focused on cataloguing already-known marine single-celled organisms, discovering unknown microbial diversity, and fitting what we know about microbes into the greater context of evolution and ecosystems. The ocean is full of tiny plants and animals drifting on the currents; almost 7, different kinds of zooplankton had already been described before the CMarZ project joined the search.
Some species are alien-like, while others look like tiny jellyfish or bugs. They feed on microscopic plant species or other zooplankton, and in turn are eaten by fish and other animals. By the time the collections from CMarZ are analyzed, it is estimated that over 14, species will be described. The scientists focused on the deep sea , under-sampled regions such as the waters of Southeast Asia , and biodiversity hotspots, identifying species visually and through DNA barcoding.
The scientists collected zooplankton at the deepest regions yet—more than 16, feet 5, meters —and developed technology to perform DNA barcoding at sea. Overall, these efforts produced the most comprehensive global view of zooplankton diversity, distribution, and abundance to date. The researchers found new and rare species , as well as hidden areas of diversity in places like the Arctic and the deep sea. This knowledge will provide a benchmark against which future changes resulting from climate change or other human-caused and natural variation can be measured.
In order to plan for the future of the ocean, the past needs to be understood. What do we know about the ocean of the past? How have humans interacted with the sea over time? These were the questions that the History of Marine Animal Populations project set out to answer. Around researchers joined forces and analyzed historical population data of marine species. Not only is it important to learn about how the number of animals changed over time, but also how their traits, such as the size of caught fish, have changed.
These are all vital pieces to understand how humans have impacted animal populations and the best way to conserve them. The analysis provides a better understanding of how populations of marine species have changed over time due to human fishing impacts, going back to 2, years in the past, providing an improved baseline of information that can help to tell the story of our ocean better. Their methods ranged from archeology digs to reading historical documents, even including old menus and reviewing trophy-fishing photos.
Once the gaps of the past are filled in with as much knowledge as possible, what do researchers do with the information? The FMAP project took the baseline of information created from the HMAP project and looked for patterns and information that could be modeled to predict future changes to the ocean. This information about how our ocean has changed will help to answer questions about what animal populations will look like in the future.
Although the Census of Marine Life was a ten-year project, concluding in , its legacy continues on in the many projects that resulted from Census collaborations and in the scientific data that was compiled during the decade of work from over 2, scientists.
The Ocean Biogeographic Information System OBIS is a portal to marine datasets that integrates the large amounts of information coming out of the ten-year Census and other sources. OBIS is the largest online repository of data associated with specific locations, and it is expected to continue to grow in the years to come.
With the ability to search by species, location, depth and time, users of the database range from scientists to educators. It is especially useful for its ability to show large-scale ecosystem patterns and relationships between species and their environments. At the conclusion of the Census of Marine Life, in , over a decade of new ocean research had been initiated. But the research didn't stop dead in the water: collaborations and work continues even today.
The experts publishing their findings recently listed a total of , marine species worldwide, ranging from seaweeds to blue whales, and estimated that between , and 2 million more multi-celled marine organisms were still unknown. Many species were likely to go extinct - due to pollution, climate change and acidification - before they were even found, he said. For , the project identified 1, new marine species - about four a day - including the Australian humpback dolphin, sponges, a South African "star-gazing shrimp" and a giant, venomous, tentacle-free box jellyfish about 50 cm 20 inches long found off Australia.
Since the WoRMS project began in , it has also listed about 1, new types of fish - including a combined total of sharks and rays, and a new barracuda in the Mediterranean sea. There are now about 18, known species of fish.
Marine life can have big economic value - sponges and molluscs are among species that have yielded cancer-fighting agents. Mees, director of the Flanders Marine Institute in Belgium where WoRMS is based, said marine prospecting for "blue biotechnology" around volcanic vents on the seabed could also help develop materials resistant to heat and toxins.
Along with new species, a review by editors also slashed about , species from the world lists after finding they duplicated already known organisms. Figure 3. Assessment of factors affecting the higher taxon approach. Changes in taxonomic effort Taxonomic effort can be a strong determinant of species discovery rates [21].
Completeness of taxonomic inventories To account for yet-to-be-discovered higher taxa, our approach fitted asymptotic regression models to the temporal accumulation curve of higher taxa. Subjectivity in the Linnaean system of classification Different ideas about the correct classification of species into a taxonomic hierarchy may distort the shape of the relationships we describe here.
Discussion Knowing the total number of species has been a question of great interest motivated in part by our collective curiosity about the diversity of life on Earth and in part by the need to provide a reference point for current and future losses of biodiversity. Materials and Methods Databases Calculations of the number of species on Earth were based on the classification of currently valid species from the Catalogue of Life www.
Statistical Analysis To account for higher taxa yet to be discovered, we used the following approach. Survey of Taxonomists We contacted 4, taxonomy experts with electronic mail addresses as listed in the World Taxonomist Database www. DOC Click here for additional data file. Figure S2 Sensitivity analysis due to changes in higher taxonomy. Figure S3 Assessing the effects of data incompleteness. Figure S4 Comparison of the fits of the hyperexponential, exponential, and power functions to the relationship between the number of higher taxa and their numerical rank.
Footnotes The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. References 1. May R. Tropical arthropod species, more or less? How many species inhabit the earth? Sci Amer. Storks N. How many species are there? Biodiv Conserv.
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