Climate change has been affecting lives of numerous flora and fauna -- whether due to change in the temperatures, the rise in pollution or change in natural habitats, forcing them to keep up with the effects or die.
And now, a study has revealed that climate change has been making it harder for seabirds to catch fish for their daily meal.
Researchers looked at diving patterns of black and white Manx shearwaters from Little Saltee, a small island off the coast of Ireland. Researchers attached tiny trackers to the feathers of these birds to better understand the diving patterns.
They recorded over 5,000 dives using publicly available databases along with a bunch of weather information and data on ocean conditions via publicly available databases.?
Researchers found that the birds dove deeper when sunlight could penetrate further underwater, hinting that visibility was crucial to their diving ability in order to forage.?
With our planet getting warmer than usual, ocean water reacts to this warmth by becoming cloudier. This is proving to be more challenging for the birds as they're forced to dive deeper, and thus further risk their life.
Jamie Darby, a marine ecologist in the School of Biological Environmental and Earth Sciences and the MaREI centre at UCC, and lead author of the study, explained, "The chemical and physical properties of the planet's oceans are changing at an unnatural rate, bringing about challenges for marine life. One consequence of climate change is that large areas of our oceans are becoming cloudier."
He added, "Our findings support the idea that the birds needed sufficient sunlight to be able to forage at depth. While this study examined one particular seabird. The results can be extended to other animals. Many visually-dependent predators could find themselves struggling to find food as human activities continue to make the oceans murkier."
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