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Sharks play an important role in marine ecosystems by helping to maintain balance and biodiversity. As top predators, they eliminate weak and sick animals and control populations of other species lower in the food chain. Removing sharks has led to declines in coral reefs and seagrass beds. Overfishing threatens shark populations, which are slow to recover due to late maturity. Approximately one-third of European shark species are considered threatened with extinction. Shark finning, where fins are removed and bodies discarded, prohibits recovery and is a major threat despite being banned in many places. Sharks also indirectly impact economies by controlling scallop-eating striped bass populations, and support ecotourism industries worth far more than fisheries.

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30 views2 pages

Documento Ingles

Sharks play an important role in marine ecosystems by helping to maintain balance and biodiversity. As top predators, they eliminate weak and sick animals and control populations of other species lower in the food chain. Removing sharks has led to declines in coral reefs and seagrass beds. Overfishing threatens shark populations, which are slow to recover due to late maturity. Approximately one-third of European shark species are considered threatened with extinction. Shark finning, where fins are removed and bodies discarded, prohibits recovery and is a major threat despite being banned in many places. Sharks also indirectly impact economies by controlling scallop-eating striped bass populations, and support ecotourism industries worth far more than fisheries.

Uploaded by

soylamargaritafeliz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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In the ecosystem

How to top predators, sharks play an important role in the ecosystem to maintain the
species below them in the food chain and as indicators of the health of the ocean. They
help to eliminate the weak and sick, and to maintain the balance with competitors, thus
ensuring the diversity of species.

How to predators, modify the habitat space of their prey, which alters the feeding
strategy and the diet of other species. Sharks are, indirectly, habitats of algae and
coral reefs. The loss of sharks has led to the decline of coral reefs, seagrass beds
and the loss of commercial fisheries.

By eliminating the presence of sharks in the coral reef ecosystems, other predators
such as the grouper proliferate and feed on herbivores. Fewer herbivores,
the macroalgae expand and coral cannot compete with them, so that the
ecosystem becomes dominated by algae and affected the survival of the reef.

Sharks play a key role as large predators of the ocean and help maintain the
balance and biodiversity in marine ecosystems. Unfortunately, increasingly
threatened by overfishing, and its low fertility and delay in reaching maturity mean
that their populations are unable to recover at a pace that are exploited.
Approximately one-third of all the species of sharks and rays evaluated to date in
European waters--nearly 40 species in total--, are considered "threatened" of
extinction according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
(IUCN).

One of the practices that is contributing to a greater extent to the extinction of


sharks is the curtailment of its fins, which consists in throwing the sea the bodies
after having cut their valuable fins. This practice is prohibited in many countries, but
the growing demand for fins, which each year increases by approximately five
percent - is to exploit the loopholes in the current EU regulation and to try to
weaken it further.

In the economy
The control of sharks on the species that are below them in the food chain indirectly affects
the economy. A study of North Carolina showed that the loss of the big sharks caused the
increase in the populations of stripes. As a result, the hungry stripes caleteros ate all
combs, so that the fishery had to close. Without scallops, the stripes went to eat other
bivalve molluscs

Sharks also influence the economy through ecotourism. In the Bahamas, a single shark
reef alive is worth $250,000 due to the tourism diving, compared to the $50 that is paid
only once when the fishermen catch the sharks. A whale shark in Belize can be about $2
million to throughout his life.

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