THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
“The butterfly effect is the idea that small things can have non linear impacts on a complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon”
A small thing which is done by us intentionally or non intentionally on the wildlife can cause species to become endangered or even extinct. And it’s estimated that half of all species on earth could go extinct by 2050, which is not too far. If we still don’t think of the effect on wildlife species on us means it would lead to a serious thing. For example it is believed that if all the honey bees disappeared from earth, humans would only have 4 years to live. All things which we are doing may not have direct impact but it may have impact in future. One of the major impacts is the climate change which is the reason for various problems faced by the living beings on this planet like global warming. Climate change alone is threatening bees and other migratory pollinators, and if we lose the bees, we lose the majority of our food supply. Bees alone pollinate 70 of the 100 plants that feed more than 90 percent of the world. If those plants die then the animal depending on it will also die. The so called apex predator which is top of the food chain which do not have any natural predators will face a problem by not getting adequate feeds.
A research is done by team of scientists funded by the stony brook university, on the ecological effect of loss on apex predators, which is practically not possible to remove the apex predator but they theoretically documented by means of empirical evidence on how the top predators and herbivores affect the earth. If there is a reduction in population of lion and leopard in the sub sahran Africa the baboon population will increase which in turn causes increased transmission of intestinal parasites from baboons to humans as these baboons forage closer to human settlement ,if the herbivores in a forest areas increased which causes over grazing and lead to decline in the wild fire frequency ,and the industrial whaling causes a large number of decline in population of plankton consuming whales which deposit carbon into the deep sea by their feces , so the result now reversed and approximately 105 million tons of carbon is transferred into the atmosphere that would have been absorbed by the whales , leading to climate change . Some human activities like introduction of foreign species into local areas for example introduction of African cat fish into Indian water reservoirs causes reduced availability of food to the local species, illegal or overfishing, deforestation expanding agriculture, hunting, pollution also have a major impact .when we loss one species in a environment it affects the entire ecosystem even the lost species is not keystone species.
The impotence of apex predator is that they are mostly vulnerable because they live long and reproduce slowly. If we take a example of an elephant which may go extinct within our lifetime because of tourism, habitat loss and poaching for ivory .as elephant eats lots of plants trees and their product, they digest and disperse more seeds than any other animal, from those plants and trees, birds , bats and other animal depend upon it for food and shelter. A small thing done by us may disturb or even destroy an entire ecosystem. A classical example is due to overhunting of otters in Californian kelp forest the population decline from millions to thousands , the main feed for otters are sea urchin which feed on giant kelp , due to decline in population of otters sea urchin population increased and almost destroyed 93 percent of the total kelp forest . Some of the plants need specific pollinators to pollinate their seeds, if the pollinator dies means the plant which depend on it will also cannot survive. And the pollinator will also get some reward for pollinating , these are symbiotic or mutual relationship between species .for example flying foxes are the only pollinators of some rainforest plants approximately 289 species including eucalyptus and agave rely on flying foxes , bees pollinate over 250,000 species of plants in turn they will get nectar as a reward .
A wildlife consist of trees ,plants , animals , birds , insect and all other species and it will take thousands of years for a untouched land by humans to become forest , all the organism living in a wildlife can have predation commensalism , mutualism , parasitism etc. All species are interconnected like spiders web . Till now we have seen about a mutualistic behavior between the organisms which can been seen by our naked eye, now we are going see about an organism which is very difficult to see by our naked eye but interestingly they have greater impact on the environment . The phytoplankton had decreased to 40 percent since 1950 which has contributed to the decline in rising of sea surface temperature, due to this the nutrient rich colder water which is deep inside and the warm water above will not mix together , so the phytoplankton will not get proper nutrients.
Zooplanktons are very sensitive to slight changes in climate so in the area of low oxygen they cannot survive. Which in turn affect the small fish which depend on plankton and the rate affect will reach up to the apex predators, and there will be a complete collapse in the environment.
HARIGOPAL S
Third year BVSc & AH
GUIDED BY
D R. V. RAMAKRISHNAN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
VETERINARY COLLEGE AND RESEARCH INSTITUTE – TIRUNELVELI
TANUVAS – CHENNAI
https://www.pashudhanpraharee.com/category/one-health/
https://fs.blog/the-butterfly-effect/
