Marine Ecosystems: Life After Mass Extinctions, May Take 4 Million Years to Recover, New Study Reveals

A pioneering study recently found that marine ecosystems can begin functioning again, providing vital roles for humans, after being wiped out much sooner compared to their return to peak biodiversity.

This research led by the University of Bristol, ScienceDaily reported, paves the way for a better understanding of the effect of climate change on all forms of life.

The international research team discovered plankton was able to recover and continue their function of controlling carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere more than double as fast as they recovered full biodiversity levels.

A similar EurekAlert! report said, according to the University of Bristol Palaeobiology professor, Daniela Schmidt, the study's senior authors their findings are enormously substantial, given growing concerns around the extinctions of species in response to intense environmental changes.

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'Foraminifer' Examined

The study, "Ecosystem function after the K/Pg extinction: decoupling of marine carbon pump and diversity", published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, indicated that marine systems can accommodate some losses when it comes to biodiversity minus losing complete functionality, which provides hope.

Nevertheless, it remains unknown, the exact tipping point so the concentration should very much keep on preserving this fragile relationship and shielding biodiversity.

Whereas previous research has shown that functionality recommences faster than biodiversity in algae, this is pioneer research to corroborate the finding further up the food chain in zooplankton, which is essential for sea life as the food web supporting fish's part.

The researchers examined tiny organisms identified as "foraminifer," similar to the size of grains of sand, from the mass extinctions, called Cretaceous-Paleogene or K-Pg, which occurred around 66 million years ago and wiped out roughly 75 percent of the plant and animal species of Earth.

The Most 'Catastrophic Occurrence'

Describing the findings, this report said, this is the most catastrophic occurrence in the modern plankton's evolutionary history, as it led to the collapse of one of the primary functions of the ocean, the "biological pump" which is sucking great amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere into the ocean where it has stayed buried in sediments for thousands of years.

The cycle does not just impact the availability of nutrients for marine life, but levels of carbon dioxide as well, outside the sea, and thus the climate at large.

According to Dr. Heather Birch, the study's lead author and former researcher at the School of Earth Sciences and Cabot Institute for the Environment of the university, their study shows how long, roughly four million years, can take for the marine ecosystem to completely recover following an extinction occurrence.

Given the human impact on the present marine ecosystems, as explained in the National Geographic site, this should make one mindful. Nevertheless, essentially the link between marine organisms and the marine carbon pump, impacts atmosphere CO2, seems not to be closely linked.

Professor Schmidt explained, the results underscore the vitality of associating climate projections with coastal and open ocean environments' ecosystems to improve their ability to understand and predict the effect of climate-induced extinctions on marine life, as well as the services to people like fishing.

The professor added, there is a need for further research to look at what takes place and whether the same patterns are appearing higher up the food web, for example, with fish.

Related information is shown on Brian Marrocco's YouTube video below: