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Written by Nell Lewis and John Lewis
(CNN) — The largest apex predator in tropical oceans, tiger sharks are notoriously ferocious. They can grow over 6 meters (20 feet), have sharp serrated teeth, and are second only to great white sharks in the number of reported attacks on humans. But in the Bahamas, tiger sharks have a less ferocious role as assistants to marine scientists.
From 2016 to 2020, a team of researchers attached camera tags to tiger sharks, allowing them to see the ocean floor from new perspectives. The data they collected revealed that it was the largest known seagrass ecosystem to cover an area of 92,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles). In the Bahamas. According to their study published in 2022, this will expand the total known global area of seagrass by more than 40%.
This is important because seagrasses capture and store large amounts of carbon in sediments, and are therefore an essential tool in mitigating climate change.
Dr. Austin Gallagher, one of the report’s co-authors and founder and CEO of the ocean research organization Beneath the Waves, said tiger sharks and other marine life help scientists map ocean ecosystems. We believe that this research may be useful for research and may lead to other important discoveries. As a guest editor for Call to Earth, he spoke to CNN about what it’s like to collaborate with tiger sharks and the importance of protecting the ocean’s carbon sinks.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
CNN: When did you get the idea to attach cameras to tiger sharks?
We’ve been putting cameras on animals for decades in the scientific community, and we’ve been doing it with sharks for many years. So, while it wasn’t completely new, I wanted to further my research on tiger sharks to better understand what a day in the life of a tiger shark is like. To do this, we needed to be able to see what the animals were seeing. Because we can infer all kinds of patterns based on an animal’s movements, such as where the animal goes and how much time it spends in a particular area or habitat. Doing so opened a Pandora’s box of new questions that ultimately set me on the path to fundamental discoveries here in the Bahamas.
CNN: What did you find in the tiger shark data?
We knew that tiger sharks spend a lot of time here in the Bahamas in shallow ocean carbonate formations, and we knew there was a vast seagrass ecosystem here, but we didn’t have much data from tiger sharks equipped with cameras. I didn’t know until I got it back. We really learned how important and vast seagrass is. The light bulb turned on for the first time. It means you need to plan how much seaweed there will be here.
Tiger sharks have provided us with more than a dozen good tracks with those camera tags, but using Earth-orbiting satellites and remote sensing approaches, it’s hard to map how many sharks are out there. We knew we needed to create maps from space because we needed to. . Neither humans nor tiger sharks can ever capture the entire Bahamas Exclusive Economic Zone. So we were able to do it and make a plan. We put divers in the water to test all our predictions from space, take photos of the ocean floor themselves, and even tag 360-degree cameras that give us a completely comprehensive view of the tiger shark’s ecology. , further used data from tiger sharks. I was looking.
Ultimately, predictions of up to 93,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) were verified. The seagrass ecosystem here in the Bahamas is by far the largest on earth. It was hidden in plain sight.
CNN: What else can we discover?
We are just beginning to understand how valuable and important this seagrass asset is, and what role tiger sharks, sea turtles, and other threatened biodiversity play in that relationship. And let’s not forget about humans and the role we play in the future in preserving these ecosystems.
Mapping and discovering them is just part of the story. Then we can create new protections around them and work with governments and environmental policy makers to actually put all this data into the right packaging and ultimately use the protections to leverage the carbon Submit to the appropriate agency that issues credits etc. It brings economic benefits to places like the Bahamas and ultimately long-term economic benefits.
CNN: What is blue carbon and why is it so valuable?
Blue carbon is a term used to describe all carbon that ends up in the ocean. It occurs naturally and is preserved and sequestered in various sediments of the ocean, primarily through plants such as seagrasses, mangroves, and salt marshes. These are what we call blue carbon ecosystems, and through natural processes such as photosynthesis, these plants sequester and store large amounts of carbon, much more than land plants.
If we want to create new protections in the oceans, especially if we want to try to build resilience in low-lying countries and small island developing States, we need to build resilience instead of climate change. There is a real purpose. One way to do that is by working with nature. Seagrass and mangroves are what we call nature-based solutions to climate change. Going out and quantifying the amount and extent of carbon is critical for marine research if we want to strengthen coastal protection and benefit local communities and biodiversity.
CNN: What is the ultimate goal of your scientific work and research?
The ultimate goal of the work I do is to create empathy for the ocean and preserve what we have for future generations. Living in harmony with these ecosystems, finding ways to live in harmony with sharks, and protecting these ecosystems like seagrass. While we are creating marine reserves and strengthening existing protections for endangered species such as sharks, it is also important to ensure that the legacy of these amazing ecosystems remains intact for as long as possible.
CNN Wire
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