How does climate change affect sharks and rays?
Climate change has already had a significant – and potentially irreversible – impact on our oceans, which already shield us from the worst of the greenhouse effect, absorbing excess CO2 from the atmosphere and an incredible 93% of the extra energy arising from our man-made emissions. This means that our oceans have not only warmed, but they have become more acidic. Ocean acidification greatly impacts the amount of calcium available for corals to grow and will lead to fewer and smaller things with shells or calcium skeletons which can drastically disrupt the ecosystem. Further, the melting of sea ice has knock-on effects for our ocean currents. All these factors represent severe threats to marine life, affecting the composition, structure and function of marine ecosystems and food webs.
Sharks and rays are affected in a number of ways. Firstly, the warmer waters are affecting shark behaviour, causing them to migrate to areas they have never been seen before. As many sharks are apex predators, these changes in their movements can have huge effects on oceanic ecosystems. This is also true for their prey; many other marine species are moving about in response to changes in environmental conditions, meaning sharks that migrate back to certain areas to feed may find their food source has disappeared. For example, many species of plankton are demonstrating northward shifts in their distribution, which could carry implications for filter-feeding elasmobranchs like the basking shark.
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Important habitats for sharks are also negatively impacted by climate change. Coral reefs, for instance, are at risk from ocean acidification and severe weather events. Many shark and ray species rely on coral reefs and are therefore vulnerable to such changes. The same can be said for mangrove forests, which are vital nursery grounds for sharks.
A major issue is that climate change, driven by human activity, is accelerating at an alarming rate. This means that the changes in our oceans are occurring too fast for marine life to sufficiently adapt. This is especially true of slow-to-evolve animals like sharks and rays, which have been around for millennia and tend to grow and reproduce gradually.
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