Written by Kristen Kusek, Former Communications Director for 新澳门六合彩内幕信息CMS
ST. PETERSBURG, FL 鈥 Climate change and nutrient pollution are causing the ocean to lose oxygen in an underreported phenomenon that poses a serious threat to marine life. The recently released a report with one of its most sobering titles yet, Ocean鈥檚 deoxygenation: everyone鈥檚 problem.
新澳门六合彩内幕信息CMS biological oceanography professor, Dr. Brad Seibel, coauthored the report鈥檚 eighth chapter covering deoxygenation in the mesopelagic zone鈥攖he mysterious twilight zone between about 200 to 1000 meters depth.
This is where the bristlemouth cyclothone, thought to be the most abundant vertebrate on the planet, roams along with so many other specially adapted fish and zooplankton that have evolved to live not only without much light, but within an extremely tight oxygen zone, said Seibel.
鈥淭hese animals have evolved a tremendous ability to extract and use the small amount of oxygen available in their environment,鈥 Seibel said. 鈥淓ven the tiniest tweak to the available oxygen can significantly alter the community structure of species that live here, and that could spell trouble for the whole ocean.鈥