Paradigm of Climate Change and its Influence on Zooplankton

Mohammad Yasir Arafat¹, Yahya Bakhtiyar¹*, Zahoor Ahmad Mir¹ and Hamid Iqbal Tak²

¹Department of Zoology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Kashmir, Hazratbal, Srinagar, 190006.

²Department of Applied Biotechnology, College of Applied Sciences, Sur, Oman

Corresponding Author E-mail: yahya.bakhtiyar@gmail.com

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/bbra/2929

ABSTRACT:

Zooplankton are the precious elements of aquatic ecosphere playing a significant role in some ecological phenomena viz., biomonitoring, ecological indication, link between primary producers and higher trophic levels, aquaculture,and maintenance of balance in aquatic food webs.The climate,being a dynamic abiotic entity, changed many times during the history of earth particularly before and after the industrial revolution.The unending materialistic benefits of human beings have been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases since the last few decades that is enough to raise the global temperature. It is a fact that both biotic and abiotic factors affect the dynamics of aquatic biota due to which the aquatic ecosystems and the organisms inhabiting them such as zooplankton are becoming the worst targets of the climate change phenomenon. Some of the significant consequences of climate change posing threats for the zooplankton community include increased temperature, acidification, nutrient enrichment,and increasing ultraviolet (UV) environment of the aquatic ecosystem that significantly affect theirsurvival, behaviour, nutritional procurement, reproduction,and their overall population dynamics.Due to the profound effects of climate change on the zooplankton community, the entire aquatic food web gets crushed away leading to more severe concerns about the higher trophic levels and overall dynamics of the aquatic biota. Thus,unending loss in the dynamics of the aquatic ecosystem could prevailand will go on expanding if the causal factors of climate change continue to operate beyond their limits unless a strong scientific policy and framework in contrary to climate change are reinforced with the key focus on aquatic biota especially zooplankton.

KEYWORDS: Aquaculture; Biomonitoring; Climate Change; Food Web; Greenhouse Gases; Zooplankton

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