Thursday, February 15, 2018

The Beginning of the End of Migration

The Beginning of the End of Migration

In today’s society, a common debate over the world is whether or not humans have been leading to climate change throughout the world. Earth does by itself goes through weather changes, leading most to believe that this increase in temperature is part of Earth’s natural pattern. It’s common to just think about the melting glaciers and bleaching coral reefs when it comes to global warming, but in other ways from greenhouse gases, humans are affecting this planet in a negative way. As seen in rainforests throughout the world, humans expanding and destroying natural land to create more resources and civilizations is extremely detrimental to wildlife, whom are left without a home.

            Recently, a new global change may be occurring at the Salton Sea, which is located in southern California. This too is from the work of humans becoming more industrialized, and spreading agriculture and development. In January 2018, it was observed that the water that once flowed through the Salton Sea has begun diverting, causing less water within the sea with higher salinity, or salt ratio. So why is this significant? The Salton Sea is found along the Pacific Flyway, the path across the west coast that birds travel down to migrate south for the winter. At least a billion birds, composed of pelicans, cormorants, skimmers and gulls just to say the least, have been traveling to the Salton Sea during the colder months of the year.


            This is huge for birds that frequently stop here during migration, because with less water with more salinity, the fish that have adapted to live in the prior situations will die off. The new sea consistency is not capable of supporting its existing fish population, which in turn restricts the diet of the frequent bird visitors. It’s hard to predict exactly what will happen to the migration of birds, whether it will lead to a decrease in species or cause them to just switch locations, but as it is human derived it will likely only create more problems as more and more water becomes changes its route. If society keeps industrializing as it is today, we’re going to see more and more examples of seas, home to billions of organisms, gradually becoming inhabitable. This article is just one of many great examples of how the Earth’s climate change is a devastating result from our human life.

Bradley, Timothy J., and Gregory M. Yanega. “Salton Sea: Ecosystem in Transition.” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 16 Feb. 2018, science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6377/754.1.

Posted by Katherine Patota (1)

7 comments:

  1. I found your post to be pretty interesting and informative overall. I was shocked to find out that the sea was become more salty. Seeing as how humans have played a significant role in causing this, is there any way that humans can somehow fix this issue? One other thing that stood out to me was how in the beginning of the third paragraph you mentioned that the sea was becoming less habitable for fish but later on you mentioned that it was "... gradually becoming inhabitable". Did you mean to say uninhabitable?

    -Trung Le (2)

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    1. Yes, uninhabitable was the word I was thinking of. Regarding your question about whether or not humans can help this problem, as you can see in the comment two down, farmer have started flooding their lands during migration season, providing a home for them during their travels.
      -Katherine Patota

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  2. I found the most concerning segment to be connected to the fish that live in the environment often fish in bodies of water have a more difficult time adapting to new environments. This would make the populations smaller as they can not survive as well and the birds there are still feeding on them. I would think that the nature of the birds is to leave and migrate when an area becomes inhospitable. I would think with the water shortages that are experienced in California that their environment is becoming smaller and smaller. I wonder if seeing a more usual north-south migration if we would see them shift east.

    Zane Ruehrwein (3)

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    1. I definitely believe that a shift in the path of migration will occur, possibly drawing them into the east coast. But on the west coast I believe more birds whom can survive without feeding on fish will increase in numbers.
      -Katherine Patota

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  3. I found this post very interesting in the aspect that the lives of millions of organisms are delicately balanced on a few factors. The increasing salinity of the water changing the amount of fish living in the water causing the amount of food for the birds to diminish, potentially forcing them into either adapting a new migration or simply dying. The birds would most likely relocate to a more hospitable area, allowing the new population of fish to thrive and repopulate the lake, potentially recreating the migration destination for the birds. I also found that to help the migrating birds, some farmers in california flood their fields, giving the birds a place to rest and eat during their travel.

    -Derek Simoncelli (3)

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  4. Very interesting article but I am still slightly confused. By diverting, do you mean the water to the sea changed its course and in the new course picked up higher salt levels? Or, does divert in this case mean that the water just changed and became more salty? Also, is the rise in salinity caused by land development?

    Sarah Kamukala (1)

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  5. It is very interesting that this drastic change could lead to either rerouting their usual migration routes or selection against individuals of the population that choose to migrate in this route. Climate change has caused changes in habitats of hundreds of species, and I wonder which course nature takes more often to allow these species to continue to live with these changes.

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