Chapter 8 Flashcards
Acidification
The increased acidic content of waters, notably the world’s oceans, so that the concentration of available carbonate ions will be too low for marine calcifers, such as coral reefs, moluscs, crustaceans, and some algae, to build their shells and skeletons
Aquaculture
Seafood farming, the fastest-growing food production sector in the world
Bottom trawling
One of the most destructive means of fishing in which heavy nets are dragged along the sea floor scooping up everything in their path
Bycatch
Non-target organisms caught or captured in the course of catching a target species, as in the fisheries, where estimates suggest that 25 percent of the world’s catch is dumped because it is not the right species or size
Carbon balance
A balance between the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and bicarbonate in the water
Coral bleaching
Death of corals caused by water temperatures becoming too warm, leading coral polyps to expel their zooxanthellae symbionts
Coral polyps
Individual biotic members of a coral reef
Ecotourism
Visits to view natural areas or species that contribute to conservation of the environment and involve an explicit educational component
Edocrine disruption
The interference of normal bodily processes such as sex, metabolism, and growth by chemicals in such products as soaps and detergents that are released into an ecosystem, as happens among aquatic species, often causing feminization
Exclusive economic zones
Areas off the coast of a nation that are claimed by that nation for its sole responsibility and exploitation, as permitted by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
Fishing down the food chain
Harvesting at progressively lower trophic levels as higher trophic levels become depleted
Hypoxic
Oxygen-deficient
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fisheries
Fisheries that are not included in most statistics
Incentive-based
Generation of inducements encouraging compliance with desired management actions
Longline
Type of commercial fishing using lines with many baited hooks
Lophelia pertusa
A cold-water coral species common to reefs off Cape Breton and Newfoundland that grows slowly and is therefore susceptible to ocean acidification
Marine protected areas (MPAs)
Underwater reserves set aside and protected from normal human exploitation because of the fragility, rarity, or valued biodiversity of their ecosystems
Prey switching
A familiar foraging behavior whereby a predator shifts from its target species after it is depleted or not available in an area to the next most preferred or profitable species until that, too, is depleted and then continuing to move down the food chain, as wolves do in moving from caribou to arctic hare to small rodents, or as humans have done in fishing down the food chain in commercial fisheries
Serial depletion
When one stock after another becomes progressively depleted as a result of prey switching, even if the total catch remains the same
Shifting baseline
When scientists have no other option than to the the current or recent degraded state as the baseline for stock biomass rather than the historical ecological abundance
Thermocline
Sharp transition in temperature between the warmer surface waters of the ocean and the cooler waters underneath, generally occurring at a depth of 120 to 240 metres
