Latest research finds ocean diversity threatened

Two studies, both published in Nature on Wednesday, point to a growing crisis in the world's oceans. Diversity is at risk with the finding that global warming is impacting phytoplankton.

Phytoplankton are microscopic plant-like organisms that produce their own food by synthesizing energy from the sun. The organisms can be found in oceans and bodies of fresh water, according to NASA. Like plants, they produce oxygen. Phytoplankton are vitally important to the food chain. NASA explains, saying

"Phytoplankton are the foundation of the aquatic food web, the primary producers, feeding everything from microscopic, animal-like zooplankton to multi-ton whales. Small fish and invertebrates also graze on the plant-like organisms, and then those smaller animals are eaten by bigger ones."

Phytoplankton also cause the toxic Red Blooms. "... any change in their productivity," NASA writes, " could have a significant influence on biodiversity, fisheries and the human food supply, and the pace of global warming." It has been predicted that global warming would have a negative impact on phytoplankton. Two recent studies appear to uphold that prediction. The two studies published Wednesday in Nature found that the amount of phytoplankton in the world's oceans has declined over the past 100 years, wrote Nature in an editor's summary. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, scientist Dr. Boris Worm, co-author of the study Global phytoplankton decline over the past century attributed the decline to warming oceans.

"We found that temperature had the best power to explain the changes."

A separate study, Global patterns and predictors of marine biodiversity across taxa, in which Dr. Worm also participated, found what lead researcher, Dr. Tittensor described as

“Areas that we identified as hot spots had higher numbers of multiple species. Unfortunately, these areas also tend to be more vulnerable to outside influences such as commercial fishing, pollution and other types of habitat interference.”

Both Tittensor and Worm are with Dalhousie University, reported the Dalhousie News. The lead researcher Global phytoplankton decline, Daniel Boyce, told CBC News

"We should be very concerned … it's extremely disturbing. Phytoplankton are the base of the marine ecosystem. It's the fuel on which it runs .… Changes in phytoplankton abundance will ultimately affect everything higher in the food chain from tiny little zooplankton all the way up to large whales, valuable fisheries and humans at the top."

The study found that while phytoplankton have been in decline for the past 100 years, 40% of the decline had occurred during the past 50 years. Dr. Worm explained to Wired,

“We are just now understanding how deeply temperature affects ocean life. It is not necessarily that increased temperature is destroying biodiversity, but we do know that a warmer ocean will look very different.”

The decline of phytoplankton has not yet been validated by further studies. Worm said

“I think that if this study holds up, it will be one of the biggest biological changes in recent times simply because of its scale. The ocean is two-thirds of the earth’s surface area, and because of the depth dimension it is probably 80 to 90 percent of the biosphere. Even the deep sea depends on phytoplankton production that rains down. On land, by contrast, there is only a very thin layer of production.”

Communications Director for Monterey Bay Aquarium, Ken Peterson wrote about the research findings, saying

"... There's no way to sugarcoat the findings by Boris Worm and his team. That point was driven home in the email note I received with link to the study -- a note from a leader in the campaign to get political and business leaders to act now and reduce human-generated carbon pollution that is driving climate change:

"Friends, this is stunning. Unfathomable, really. A new article in Nature from Boris Worm at Dalhousie (one of the most respected oceanographers around), claims that phytoplankton biomass in oceans -- the basic engine of carbon fixation and the basis of the food chain -- has dropped, since 1950, by 40%!!!!!

"If this is true, the implications of this are just staggering. It means that the non-linear acceleration has already begun, massively, at the very heart of the carbon cycle. It also means that marine food production systems are already utterly out of kilter."

Peterson warned that without taking action to protect phytoplankton, the future of humans is similar to that depicted in the 1973 movie Soylent Green. The science fiction flick depicts New York in 2022, with overpopulation and global warming pressuring the survival of humans, according to summaries posted at IMBD.