Water Pollution and its Effect on Food Chains and Food Webs
Water pollution throughout the world is affecting food chains and food webs. Water such as lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, and oceans become polluted in many different ways. One main way is the dumping of trash, or littering. Many creeks, rivers, and even oceans have been polluted by manmade items such as trash (EPA, 2011). When fresh water such as rivers and creeks become polluted, it hurts the surrounding wildlife. Trash can collect and begin to clog creeks, which stop fish from swimming upstream and downstream to spawn, thus depleting the amount of fish, which could eventually lead to the loss of an entire population. As trash collects, it also can block sunlight which can lead to the death of some plant life within the water (Water Pollution, 2011).
In turn, the decrease of fish population due to pollutants such as trash, and even harmful chemicals, affects the entire food chain surrounding it (EPA, 2011). Birds of prey such as bald eagles and hawks, live off of, and eat fish. As fish populations begin to deplete, then that effects the bird population because the birds have no food to eat. Since fish generally live off of insects, there is a rise in the insect population since they are not being eaten. There is also the risk of disease or health issues effecting fish. Since there are so many chemicals running into and polluting water, this can cause fish themselves to be contaminated (EPA, 2011). This poses a threat because the birds that then eat these contaminated fish can gain their own health problems, thus also causing a decrease in the population of birds.
Last year in 2010, there was a major water pollution event that occurred. Tons of oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico, and killed the surrounding wildlife. More than 6,000 animals were killed such as birds, fish, turtles, and dolphins. With such a large death of birds, there were fewer animals to prey on fish, which meant a rise in the population of fish. However with the death of so many dolphins, there was less prey for sharks to feed on, which meant a decrease in the shark population.
As you can see, water pollution greatly
affects food chains and food webs that are
connected to water. If one species is affected, it creates a chain reaction. That is why we must do our best to lessen the pollution of water, so we do not affect the ecosystems and the food chains. If one species is affected, the entire food chain is affected (U.S. Dept. Fish and Game, 2010).
Water pollution is a growing problem in our environments. Water pollution causes many problems and is very dangerous (Keep Earth Beautiful, 2002) For example let’s say a river is contaminated. The fish in the water and other living creatures then become infected with this substance and it may even kill them. If the fish or other living creatures die then that would mean less food for other animals such as birds. Then this could result in the population decrease of this species of bird. Then there would be two population decreases that would just throw off the whole food chain (Food Chains and Food Webs, 2001). When the birds die out from feasting on the contaminated fish then the bird’s population could decrease or possibly cease to exist. With a population decrease in the birds, the animals that prey on the birds would have a decrease in their resources which would possibly weaken their species. This could possibly consequence in the extinction of a species (Answers.com, 2011). Another threatening form of water pollution would be if the fish was infected by the contaminate and then when the bird ate it the bacteria or whatever it was would then spread to the bird and either kill it or continue to spread throughout the food chain.
This could be very bad for the environment and the ecosystem. Water pollution also affects other food chains and webs not just the system with fish, but if an animal comes to the water’s edge and begins to drink the contaminated water and become very sick or die (Marine Fisheries Food Webs, 2009). This could then cause the same chain reaction and make a lot of animals sick or contaminated. This again would most likely result in fluctuation of the ecosystems flow.
Water Pollution Affecting the Water, Carbon, and Nitrogen Cycles
Water pollution affects water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles. The water cycle is the cycle of water moving up from the earth, into the atmosphere, and water falling from the atmosphere to earth (e-Tap, 2011). The sun provides all of the energy for the water cycle by evaporating water off of treetops and the ocean’s surface. Water from inland areas, evaporates in the ground, and finds its way to the ocean, and just becomes run off and travels to the oceans in liquid form. However, when water evaporates, it comes back in the form of precipitation, or rain. But as it falls, it gather pollutants from the air, and becomes acid rain. This further pollutes water and its inhabitants, but water pollution does not solely affect the water cycle. This is mainly because when water evaporates, it leaves behind minerals, and even pollutants, and goes up as “clean” water (USGS, 2011).
Water pollution however, does affect the carbon cycle. The carbon cycle is the cycle of carbon from the atmosphere to earth, and back again (e-Tap, 2011). Carbon enters the atmosphere as animals breathe out CO2, decomposers break down dead matter, volcanoes erupt, fires burn carbon compounds, and through the burning of fossil fuels. In order for the carbon cycle to continue, carbon needs to be released from animals in the form of CO2. Aerobic life, such as fish, contributes to the carbon cycle (Abboud, 2011). However, because of water pollution, there are less and less fish and even other water life, thus decreasing the amount of carbon that is released into the atmosphere. This in turn, affects the carbon cycle. Water pollution affects the nitrogen cycle the least. The nitrogen cycle is the cycle of nitrogen as it enters earth, becomes fixed, and leaves earth, back to the atmosphere. The only way that water pollution can affect the nitrogen cycle is if there is too much trash in one area of a body of water, thus clogging the surface and not allowing algae to absorb the nitrogen. It could also clog the surface and not allow denitrifying bacteria in waterlogged soil to release the nitrogen back into the atmosphere (Abboud,2011).
The water cycle is a very key “ingredient” in the cake of the world and the environments we live in. The water cycle is the cycle of processes by which water circulates between the earth's oceans, atmosphere, and land, involving precipitation as rain and snow, drainage in streams and rivers, and return to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration. The water cycle is important for many things, these things are; recycling the water that we use and purifying it in nature’s own special way. It also circulates the water so that the water can be spread evenly everywhere like when it rains the water gets to all the places it needs to be and not just stuck in one place (The Water Cycle, 2011). Other important cycles for the environment are the nitrogen and carbon cycles. The carbon cycle is the circulation of carbon between living organisms and their surroundings which is the process that includes photosynthesis, decomposition, and respiration. This cycle is important because if we didn’t have photosynthesis then the oxygen supply would deficit. The other importance of this cycle is that if we didn’t have decomposers breaking down the carbon and dead carcasses then we would just have dead things lying around and I am pretty sure that, that would not be pleasant (The Carbon Cycle, 1997). The nitrogen cycle is the natural circulation of nitrogen by living organisms. Nitrates in the soil, derived from dead organic matter by bacterial action, are absorbed and synthesized into complex organic compounds by plants and reduced to nitrates again when the plants and the animals feeding on them die and decay. This is an important cycle because if we didn’t have the nitrogen cycle then all of this useful nitrogen would go to waste. It is important because when an animal dies and the decomposers break it down then the nitrogen gets absorbed into the ground and is used to give the plants energy to grow and prosper then when the plant dies the nitrogen is then absorbed into the environment and reused by living things (The Nitrogen Cycle, 2007). Water pollution can affect all of these things immensely. Water pollution can affect the water cycle because if the water is polluted it can be very hard to evaporate the water and then there would be a lot less water to spread around the rest of the environment. The water could also be affected with something then when it is evaporated the contaminate could be soaked up with the water and then rain the contaminated water all over the environment and harm the plants, animals, humans, and important things like that (The Water Cycle: Evaporation, 2011). Water pollution also affects the other cycles as well. Water pollution affects the carbon cycle as well because if the earth doesn’t get water then how would the plants get the water they need in order to photosynthesize, how would the earth support the decomposers (A Basic Explanation of How Photosynthesis Works in Plants, 2011) . Nothing would survive without good water. If pollution affects the water then the water contaminate, would spread everywhere or there would be a shortage on good clean water. Water pollution doesn’t really affect the nitrogen cycle because as I stated before the nitrogen cycle is the natural circulation of nitrogen by living organisms. Where the dead carcass is broken down and the nitrogen from the body is recycled into the earth and used by other living organisms. It is very important to protect your environment and your ecosystems in order to have an excellent world to share with everyone. Protect your local lakes and water ecosystems and sooner or later you will change the world.
Water Pollution and Population Growth
A lot of people aren’t aware about the major affects water pollution has on the population growth of oceanic organisms. Many organisms are dying because of water contamination. One of the most common ways fish and other organisms die is by the lack of oxygen there is in the polluted water. Also, the dumping of pesticides and other toxic residue causes many organisms to lose their life. The death rate of oceanic organisms continues to increase. If water pollution doesn’t stop happening, the rate of death will continue to increase as well as the emigration rate. Emigration could be defined as the act of leaving ones country or region to settle in another (Dictionary, 2011). If, for example, a clown fish’s home is being destroyed and contaminated by toxic waste and harmful chemicals, the clown fish will eventually emigrate from its home and immigrate to another region of the ocean floor. Emigration isn’t necessarily a good thing. Some species may take larger amounts of time to adapt to their new homes than others will. If those species can’t adapt, then they will die out (Abboud, 2011).
Immigration could also very easily become a big problem. Immigration is the introduction of new people or species into a habitat (Biology-Online, 2010). If there are organisms continually emigrating from their homes and immigrating into other species habitats, then there could be conflict between the organisms and result in more emigration or death. If there continues to be death among species, sooner or later that species will become extinct (Abboud, 2011). If a species becomes extinct, the end result of that would be a huge drop in birth rates for that specific species. Marine life is easily affected, so the best thing that we can do to prevent these horrible things to happen is to simply not pollute the water.
Water Pollution and Biotic/Abiotic Factors of the Ecosystem
Water pollution has a huge impact on biotic and abiotic factors of the ecosystem. Biotic factors are the living, breathing organisms of life (Biology-Online, 2010) .There are thousands of living organisms in the ocean. Some biotic factors that are affected by water pollution are aquatic food such as phyto- and zoo-plankton. (Oxford Journals, 2007) If there is no aquatic food then there will be a great decrease in whales, small fish, sea stars and shrimp. If there is a decrease in aquatic food, then the population of the fish that eat that aquatic food will decrease. Therefore there will be a mass chain reaction of decreased predator populations. This could be very dangerous for the ecosystem. One other biotic factor that is affected by water pollution is the mortality of sea plants which provide shelter for fish (Pollution Issues, 2010).
Abiotic factors are the nonliving factors that affect living organisms (Biology-Online, 2010). Believe it or not, yes there are even some nonliving factors that are affected by water pollution. One factor that’s greatly affected by water pollution is the oxygen content (Pollution Issues, 2010). The oxygen content of the water can be reduced greatly if it is being polluted by an organic source, such as sewage. The amount of dissolved oxygen usually determines the number and types of organisms living in that body of water. For example, trout are sensitive to low dissolved oxygen levels and cannot survive in warm, slow-moving rivers or streams (Biology-Online, 2010). Decay of organic material in water such as untreated sewage or dead vegetation can greatly reduce dissolved oxygen concentration. Another important abiotic factor that is affected by the pollution of water is temperature. If there was cooling water that entered some body of water, that water would act as a thermal pollutant and have an adverse effect on the members of that specific ecosystem (Pollution Issues, 2010).
Symbiosis
Symbiosis, according to Dictionary.com is “a close and often long-term interaction between different biological species.” In other words it’s a relationship between two organisms of different biological species where the relationship is either mutualism (Both the symbiotic and host benefit), parasitism (The symbiotic benefits to the detriment of the host), and predation (The symbiotic benefits to the death of the host). Mutualism, in case you don’t already know, is when both of the organisms are fine with the other, they don’t care. However, in parasitism one is happy while the other one is sad, will become weary and eventually will die. Finally there is predation, this is when one of the organisms in the relationship is happy and benefits of the other, however, seeing as it is predation the other is dead. You shouldn’t however confuse these as being the same as symbiosis (Abboud, 2011).
We find ourselves asking how water pollution affects symbiosis and realize that when water is polluted there are many things that are affected, one of them being how symbiosis keeps animals alive in the water. For those who use mutualism it has almost no effect, however if you were to look at those say the predations there is tons of effect. When you are a predator and even a parasite you need things to prey, and live on, well, the more water that is polluted the more and more marine life continue to become sick and die. This means less food for everyone, once again we can realize how important un-polluted water is in our life’s, not only for us but for all animals because no matter what happens something is going to be effected by something else and once it works its way up the chain it is not that easy to undo (Abboud, 2011).
Producers, consumers, decomposers, autotrophs, and heterotrophs
A Producer is an organism that is capable of producing its own food, for example, some types of bacteria or plants. Let’s say that we have a food chain and it goes something like this
Grass---> Mouse--->snake--->hawk
In this case the producer would be the grass seeing as it is the only animal on the chain that can produce its own food. A Producer can also be called an Autotrophs, this also means that that organism can make its own food. The Producer has the most important job of all of the animals in the chain because without it the others could not continue to eat to live. This is because once the grass has grown then the mouse can start to eat, and after the mouse has eaten then the snake can eat it continuing onto the hawk (Abboud, 2011).
Water Pollution, you may be saying “what the heck does water pollution have to do with producers?” I’ll tell you, if you have ever thought really hard about what is in water all over the plants, just take a second to think about it. Producers that’s right, and what do you think feeds all those fish that live in oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams? Yep, Producers!! Just think about it, the more pollution we have in the water the less healthy of an environment they have to grow in. pretty soon they just start dying away one by one then the fish have nothing to eat, then the sharks and such…etc (Pollution Issues, 2010). Another important thing that Producers do for water is they provide nesting places for eggs too hatch, oxygenate the water, and provide nutrients for the water. Now you see how much they are related. One terrible thing like water pollution and many species suffer, including us. So, conclusion, water pollution leads to dead producers, and then works its way up the food chain. A producer can make its own food this labels it as an autotroph (Abboud, 2011).
