Effects on the animals' homes

December 14, 2021

Written by: Caroline Kim

To animals, seas, mountains, and deserts are their home. We know that as humans sharing this planet, it’s important we do our part to preserve the environment. We also know that issues such as climate change can influence animals, but we haven’t explored that too much yet. So, today we are going to take a glimpse at how climate change influences butterflies and how pollutants can affect sea animals.

Approximately 71% of the earth’s surface is composed of water, and about 20% of living organisms live in these bodies of water. The pollution, climate change, and different human induced activities all impact the environment and therefore the organisms living within the environment. For example, noises that humans make can largely impact the way fish and other animals communicate and interact with each other; this is because sounds travel much faster underwater. Fish and other underwater organisms make different noises and communicate to find partners, detect prey/predators, and prevent getting lost from a group. However, sounds from above the water such as traffic, construction, factories, and other exploration vehicles can cause excess noise, interfering with the underwater noises. As for pollution, the trash carelessly thrown out by people such as cans, plastic bottles, masks, and other garbage can directly harm animals; one example is the ingestion of plastic and garbage by animals, which can cause starvation/disease and lead to death. It’s important to keep in mind that the plastic wrapper that is left behind on the beach can be the direct cause of death in a sea animal.

Shifting over from sea to land, I’m sure you can recall that childhood butterfly we always saw: the Monarch butterfly. As of 2020, the population of these warm-toned butterflies reached a major trough in 2020, causing many to believe an extinction of the species was near. To everyone’s surprise however, as of 2021, more than 100,000 of these butterflies were counted. Many suspect that the underlying cause is climate change. Not much research has been done on this yet, and we will revisit the correlation of climate change and migration in a later post, but what are your thoughts? Do you think climate change really is the answer or might there be other causes?

Sources:

Daley, Haven. “After Record Low, Monarch Butterflies Return to California.” MOppenheimTV, 17 Nov. 2021, www.moppenheim.tv/after-record-low-monarch-butterflies-return-to-california/.

McFall-Johnsen, Morgan. “California Has 50 Times More Monarch Butterflies than Last Year - a Puzzling Blip in Their Path to Extinction.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 3 Dec. 2021, www.businessinsider.com/california-monarch-butterflies-make-promising-puzzling-rebound-2021-12.

“How Much Water Is There on Earth? Completed.” How Much Water Is There on Earth? | U.S. Geological Survey, 13 Nov. 2019, www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/how-much-water-there-earth#:~:text=About%2071%20percent%20of%20the,percent%20of%20all%20Earth's%20water.

Zhang, Sarah. “Why Are There so Many More Species on Land When the Sea Is Bigger?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 12 July 2017, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/07/why-are-there-so-many-more-species-on-land-than-in-the-sea/533247/.

Larson, Christina. “Under the Sea, Humans Have Changed Ocean Sounds.” MOppenheimTV, 4 Feb. 2021, www.moppenheim.tv/under-the-sea-humans-have-changed-ocean-sounds/.

Reddy, Simon. “Plastic Pollution Affects Sea Life throughout the Ocean.” The Pew Charitable Trusts, 24 Sept. 2018, www.pewtrusts.org/research-and-analysis/articles/2018/09/24/plastic-pollution-affects-sea-life-throughout-the-ocean.