Don’t Let Climate Change Change Boobies!

According to a study out just this week, climate change may have a real and dramatic effect on the Galapagos Nazca boobie population.

Global warming is affecting the ocean water temperature all around Galapagos. And, with warming waters comes a change in the marine life population. Here in Galapagos the fish that populate the seas are fundamentally important to the diverse species on the land. If the water temperature causes the foods that the birds feed on to change or become less abundant, then the birds’ breeding ability and habits are likely to change as well. It’s really simple cause and effect.

Already, rising water temperature is changing the fish that the boobies rely on in their diet to thrive. For example, from 1983 to 1997, boobies ate mostly sardines. These high quality fish were replaced, because of ocean changes, with flying fish, not nearly as nutritious. There was a dramatic change in the boobie population as a result. The study reports that “breeding success under the poor diet fell dramatically, causing the population growth rate to fall below 1, indicating a shrinking population.”

So, there is a great deal of trepidation that population growth will not recover, and may actually suffer further as the ocean temperature rises. The researchers built upon this ”rare evidence of the effect of ocean warming on a tropical marine vertebrate.” The change will not happen over night, but without a reversal of the rising temperature trend, it is inevitable.

You can read the entire study at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182545.

Harry Jiménez, Owner and General Manager
Galapagos Eco Friendly
Av. 12 de Febrero y Av. J Roldo
San Cristobal Island
Galapagos, Ecuador SCY
Reservations: 593 052 520 124
Email: info@galapagosecolodge.net