Face the disasters of certain climatic disasters, sharks are essential for the survival of ecosystems. This is the conclusion reached by researchers, cited by the Guardian, after working on the damage from a major ocean heat wave in 2011. At the time, a quarter of one of the world’s largest seaweed meadows, in Australia’s Shark Bay, was gone.
It was already established by these researchers from the universities of Florida, Washington and Dealin, in Australia, that the tiger sharks protect the algae by hunting the dugongs and the turtles, which feed on it massively. They therefore wished to observe the impact of the absence of sharks on the ecosystem and to know whether the absence of predators could accelerate the effects of climate change.
The need to protect predators
In an area scarred by the heat wave, scientists took advantage of the temporary absence of dugongs that left for areas rich in flora. They were able to reproduce the rate of algae consumption and the feeding behavior of these marine mammals via divers who went to collect algae at the rate of dugongs in a hypothetical situation where predators disappeared or were victims of overfishing.
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In fact, most of the algae does not succeed in reforming itself, too often disturbed by marine animals. When predators are not there, not only is the ecosystem disturbed, but its regeneration is made impossible by herbivores. Thus, the protection of marine predators, such as sharks, will play an essential role in the fight against global warming and will prevent irreversible fallout.
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