The loss of sharks could contribute to the destruction of one of the planet’s most under-appreciated sources of carbon storage — seagrasses. While sharks are often sensationalized as voracious predators, it’s their actual prey that poses a risk to seagrasses, according to FIU researchers.
“Seagrasses around the world are under considerable threat — from pollution to dredging and changes in water quality,” said Mike Heithaus, interim dean of FIU’s College of Arts & Sciences and a marine biology researcher who specializes in sharks. “Now, it appears that the loss of sharks, especially tiger sharks, can cause collapses of seagrass ecosystems as well.”
As global efforts are under way to conserve sea turtles, shark populations are suffering from overfishing, which is creating an imbalance of the two animals in the world’s oceans. The focus of the research is about sustaining the delicate food chain balance. In this case, sharks, turtles and seagrasses must all be preserved in concert. To not do so, could trigger an ecosystem collapse.
“Historical overfishing of sea turtles so drastically reduced the numbers of turtles in the ocean by the 16th century that impacts on seagrass meadows were rarely recognized,” said James Fourqurean, FIU professor of biology and co-author of the study. “It’s only now that conservation efforts are on their way to restoring sea turtle populations that we are now experiencing the consequences of how overfishing large sharks is impacting seagrass.”
The concept is simple. Sharks feed on turtles. Turtles eat seagrass. Healthy tiger shark populations keep turtle populations in check so they do not devour entire meadows before the seagrasses are able to replenish themselves. Seagrass meadows, acre per acre, are among the world’s most valuable ecosystems, providing nurseries for species that people rely on, protecting water quality, slowing rates of coastal erosion and storing carbon dioxide, which helps to mitigate climate change. While most seagrass losses to date have been attributed to poor coastal zone management, the food chain variable has been largely ignored.
The researchers examined the impacts of green sea turtles on seagrass communities in Bermuda, Australia, Indonesia and India, all locations with large green sea turtle populations. The findings were published this week in Frontiers in Marine Science. In each of the sites, data suggests the seagrass meadows are being disrupted by heavy grazing where turtle populations are increasing and shark populations are down. But that doesn’t mean turtles are villains. In most of the world, they are threatened with extinction and still need conservation.
“We’ve seen similar issues on land – the loss of wolves leads to population explosions of deer that then damage ecosystems,” Heithaus said. “We need efforts to protect and rebuild turtle populations in most of the world, but we also need to be working to ensure that populations of their predators are intact so the turtles don’t eat themselves out of house and home.”
The UN needs to put it’s overrated foot down and call a HALT to slaughtering sharks. Over 70 million sharks a year are killed by and for humans. Enough is enough.
The ecosystem sustainablility for different species of sharks and sea turtles alike in Florida waters are enrich with biodiversity hotspots. In Miami-Dade county the carbon footage still have the highest praise for United States being one of the cleanest city, because people who end up living there, it is their job to maintain the balance of ecosystem of all species alike.
Another thing to consider for people who do and enjoy sport fishing, those people should not be proud or pride themselves on what they just did for the biodiversity.Plus it’s rather just be better to grow their own fish!
Shows on tv like Shark Hunters on NBCSP should be canceled. It glorifies killing sharks.