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Maritime government
06-26-2017 09:29:03
According to a new study led by Dr. Catalina Pimiento of the University of Zurich, marine life may be more vulnerable to climate change than previously known.
The study – “The extinction of Pliocene marine megafauna and its impact on activity diversity” – looked at fossils from large marine mammals, seabirds, sharks, and other large coastal marine life over a period of about five million years. , from the Pliocene up to the end of the last ice age. The results?
“We were able to show that about a third of marine megafauna disappeared three or two million years ago. As a result, the marine megafaunal communities already inhabited have been transformed and operate at a reduced diversity, “Pimiento said. out of sight.
“This study shows that marine megafauna has been much more vulnerable to recent global environmental changes than previously thought,” Pimiento said. “Our models have shown that warm-blooded animals in particular more likely to disappear. ”
In addition to the casualties among marine mammals, 43 percent of sea turtle species, 35 percent of seabirds and nine percent of sharks, including the real Carcharocles Megalodon, disappeared. Levels of diversity did not pass after this extravaganza event, although new and familiar animals emerged – the storm bird, the polar bear and the yellow-eyed penguin, among others.
Dr. Pimiento’s team estimated that these extinctions accounted for about 17 percent of the preexisting ecological activities in coastal ecosystems and altered a further 21 percent, creating dramatic changes in predator-prey relationships. The period of loss of activity and species diversity coincided with the destruction of coastal habitat due to violent fluctuations in sea level, an act of the rapid glaciation at the beginning of the Pliestocene.
While extinction has been paralleled by falling sea temperatures and sea levels, the authors have warned that they are giving a warning story for today’s warming times: marine species such as whales and seals remain at risk from human impacts.