Climate Solutions: Chapter 5

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Published: June 16, 2010, 5:43 pm
Updated: May 7, 2012, 11:53 am
Author: Leo Wiegman
Author: David Blockstein
Topic Editor: Peter Saundry
Topics:

Case Study of Chesapeake Bay Eel grass

Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period in human history, largely to meet fast-growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel. —Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005 The threats to the future of biodiversity include habitat conversion, environmental toxification, climate change, and direct exploitation of wildlife. [15] —Paul Ehrlich and Robert Pringle, 2008 Species are becoming extinct at the fastest rate known in geological history and most of these extinctions have been tied to human activity. [18] —Ecological Society of America, 2008

The loss of critical biodiversity is just as threatening for aquatic environments as land-based life. For example, eelgrass is common throughout the world in coastal estuaries. There it serves as a primary producer of oxygen through photosynthesis. “Aquatic grasses, or submerged aquatic vegetation, are one of the most important habitats in Chesapeake Bay. Bay grasses provide critical habitat to key species such as blue crab and striped bass, and can improve water clarity.” [5]

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, where fresh and salt water mix on daily tides in a life-sustaining broth for myriad plants and animals. The bay’s watershed is fed by 150 rivers from six states and the District of Columbia. The bay itself is 300 km (200 miles) long. In the 1970s, the bay contained one of the planet's first identified marine dead zones, an area with too little oxygen to support life. Farm runoff and industrial waste prevented sunlight (Solar radiation) from reaching the bottom of the bay, and the eelgrass beds withered. While the environmental regulations have largely helped clean up the worst pollution sources, the bay has continued to suffer dramatic losses of the nursery beds. In 2005, 78,000 acres of eelgrass beds remained. The very next year, 2006, a 25% decline caused the eelgrass beds to shrink to just under 60,000 acres. The result is a greatly impoverished estuary whose oxygen-starved waters can no longer support the marine life for which it was once so famous. Delicious Maryland crab cakes may be a thing of the past in a very short time.

{Insert Figure 5.10 Aquatic Grass Collapse in Chesapeake Bay}

Online figures

Figure 5.2 (a)
Figure 5.2 (b)
Figure 5.2 Invasive aquatic species in Florida and Ohio: 1990 to today Over 300 nonnative species have established themselves in Florida since 1950 (a). In that same time, almost 100 nonnative species has invaded Ohio (b). In Florida, five out of six of these exotic species come from outside the United States, and in Ohio two out of three nonnative species are exotic to the United States. This graph shows the cumulative number of species introduced in 50-year increments. The bars are further divided to show those that are native transplants (native to a portion of the United States but moved to a nonnative area in the United States) and exotic transplants (not native to the United States). Source: [57]
Figure 5.3 (a)
Figure 5.3 (b)
Figure 5.3 Introduction pathways for invasive aquatic species in Florida and Ohio
We introduce exotic aquatic species in a stunning variety of ways, some accidental, some through negligence. The biggest pathway in Florida (top pie chart) is through aquarium releases (of people emptying their aquariums into local water bodies or “flushing” down the sink or toilet). In Ohio (bottom pie chart), the largest source is “unknown,” and the second largest is the stocking of ponds, lakes, and rivers with nonnative fish. Each category represents a combination of a species introduced via a pathway. A single species can be introduced by more than one pathway and may therefore be counted more than once. Source: [57]
Figure 5.4 (a)
Figure 5.4 (b)
Figure 5.4 Origins of species introduced to Florida and Ohio
Not too surprisingly, one out of every four species introduced to Florida (a) comes from South America, but almost as many come from Asia. In Ohio (b), one out of three nonnative species comes from somewhere else in North America, but two-thirds come from other continents. This graph shows the percentage of species that are native transplants (native to a portion of the United States but moved to a nonnative area in the United States) and exotic transplants (not native to the United States). Source: [57]
Figure 5.8 Climate triggers around the globe. This global map shows potential tipping elements in the climate system relevant to the quality of human life. Darker underlying shading indicates the global population density. Climate forcings could lead these subsystems to respond with threshold-type behavior in which a small perturbation at a critical point qualitatively alters the future fate of the system. These behaviors could be triggered this century, and climate could undergo a qualitative change within this millennium. Question marks indicate systems whose statuses as tipping elements are particularly uncertain. Source: [28]
Figure 5.9 Fishy escapes: Distances tagged fish traveled beyond their reserves. The graph shows the maximum distances (in miles) that tagged fish traveled from marine reserves in Kenya (dory snapper, whitespotted rabbitfish), Alaska (lingcod), and Florida (spotted seatrout, black drum, common snook). These data provide direct evidence that fish spill over from marine reserves into surrounding unprotected waters, a sign of the positive impact on biodiversity that a reserve can have beyond its borders. Source: [49]
Figure 5.10 Aquatic grass collapse in the Chesapeake Bay. The darker areas of this Chesapeake map show those with the heaviest loss of eelgrass. Only the areas in the northernmost reaches of the Bay closer to Baltimore have made good progress toward reducing loss of aquatic beds. Source: [5]
Figure 5.10 Aquatic grass collapse in the Chesapeake Bay. The darker areas of this Chesapeake map show those with the heaviest loss of eelgrass. Only the areas in the northernmost reaches of the Bay closer to Baltimore have made good progress toward reducing loss of aquatic beds. Source: [5]

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Online resources

Action items

Action 18: Coastal Management and Climate Change

Action 19: Forest Management and Climate Change

Action 20: Climate Change, Wildlife Populations, and Disease Dynamics

Action 35: Climate Change and Human Health- Engaging the Public Health Community

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This is a chapter from Climate Solutions Consensus.
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Citation

Wiegman, L., & Blockstein, D. (2012). Climate Solutions: Chapter 5. Retrieved from http://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/Climate_Solutions:_Chapter_5
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