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How animals are affected by dead zones
Dead zones constitue about 10% of the ocean
Dead zones can destroy entire ecostystems by essentially suffocating the biodiversity. Fish and vertebrates that are mobile such as shrimp or crabs can typically migrate out of a dead zone; however plants or animals that are slow moving or attached to the bottom of the sea floor, like seagrass, worms and clams will die if they’re exposed for too long. Animals either have to stay and die or swim away if possible to avoid the hypoxia.
As the global temperature increases, animals like fish and crabs require much more oyxygen to survive. However, with less oxygen, the animals will soon die off and a whole ecostystem could collapse.
(Zielinski, 2014)
by MMarks
baltic nest