So many ecosystems in the world today are affected by us humans. Whether we are over fishing, not recycling or overall just being too simple minded to worry about how we are affecting the non-human creatures and plants in our earth. An ecosystem that has recently felt the disturbance caused by us humans is the bio-diverse marine life. Over fishing in certain areas is reducing the marine life's main source of nutrients- fish urine.
Marine biologists, Abel Valdivia and Courtney Cox spent years examining, taking photos, taking surveys, and collecting data in the water from Florida Keys to Cuba. In the end, their research concluded that it was not necessarily the over fishing of one species that was lowering nutrients levels from the fish urine, but the over fishing of the larger fish within certain species. The larger the fish, the larger the bladder, the more it pees, the more nutrients that ecosystem gets. The areas examined showed that the more fished areas resulted in a loss of over half the fish-driven "recycling". Most of the areas that they examined were regulated and had limits for fisherman, but the experts found out that the limits which were put in place really meant nothing. Instead of putting a limit on the amount of fish that people should be allowed to take, the limit should be on how large the fish are that one can take.
In order for ecosystems to naturally succeed, humans need to do as much as they can to let the ecosystems occur naturally to carry out their functions to support whatever may be living there. Humans often are unknowingly greedy and really do not understand the harm they may be having just by going on a fishing day trip. In the end, people need to be more aware of the harm they are causing and limits should be put in place that actually help resolve the human based problem.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/fish-urine-pee-coral-reefs-recycling-nutrients-ecology/
Marine biologists, Abel Valdivia and Courtney Cox spent years examining, taking photos, taking surveys, and collecting data in the water from Florida Keys to Cuba. In the end, their research concluded that it was not necessarily the over fishing of one species that was lowering nutrients levels from the fish urine, but the over fishing of the larger fish within certain species. The larger the fish, the larger the bladder, the more it pees, the more nutrients that ecosystem gets. The areas examined showed that the more fished areas resulted in a loss of over half the fish-driven "recycling". Most of the areas that they examined were regulated and had limits for fisherman, but the experts found out that the limits which were put in place really meant nothing. Instead of putting a limit on the amount of fish that people should be allowed to take, the limit should be on how large the fish are that one can take.
In order for ecosystems to naturally succeed, humans need to do as much as they can to let the ecosystems occur naturally to carry out their functions to support whatever may be living there. Humans often are unknowingly greedy and really do not understand the harm they may be having just by going on a fishing day trip. In the end, people need to be more aware of the harm they are causing and limits should be put in place that actually help resolve the human based problem.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/fish-urine-pee-coral-reefs-recycling-nutrients-ecology/