Argumentative Essay – Draft #1 - Stephanie

8/12/2019 Argumentative Essay Draft #1 - Stephanie

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Argumentative Essay Draft #1

Stephanie Pacheco Albano

EAP2 F WW


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Stephanie Pacheco AlbanoArgumentative EssayDraft #1EAP2 F WWJuly, 28th

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Biological Adaptations Caused By Climate Change

Introduction

With the increase of greenhouse gases concentrations, global climate has changed, and the

consequence is a raising in the earths surface temperature by 0.74 C in the past century

(Penuelas et al., 2013, p.1). This increase of temperature is causing physical, chemical and

biological changes that are occuring accelerate. Earths temperature cant increase more than

2C so rapid, because it would be disastrous for life. Some species, like plants and ectoterms,

couldnt adapt or migrate so fast as an extreme climate change, so theyll possibly die.

Biologists are really concerned about whats go to happen to our ecosystems. Probably, while

people believes global warming is a natural cause and species can survive the extreme climate

change because they passed through this before in ice ages, researches prove that a new

natural selection will happen. Weak species will extinct and stronger species (who will

suffer alterations in their gene expression and metabolism together with the migration of these

organisms to habitats with better conditions) will survive, creating a new ecosystem. How

species will survive depends on the capacity and the possible feedbacks of these changes in

terrestrial and marine organisms, populations, communities and ecosystems to adapt to

climate change.


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Counter-Argument

Anthropo-skeptics makes a different analysis about global warming. They say human action

isnt accelerating, and data is fake because in the beginning the earth was heating, due to the

fossil fuels emissions increasing the greenhouse effects, but actually the earth is cooling.

Geraldo Lino in his book The Global Warming Fraud says that Global warming, as well as

the colds of atmosphere and oceans, are part of climate dynamics of the Earth and man has no

influence on these phenomena. These are natural cycles that occur over millions of years.

The changes are natural because earth is in transition to a new ice age and they say all data

about global warming is an estrategy to take off the attention from more important problems,

such as sanitation and other social problems. They also believe that species can survive the ice

ages because they passed through this before, an example is the polar bear that survive the last

interglacial period when the temperature was 5 degrees Celsius warmer. But a change in

temperature is significant to some species. It changes their biochemical pathways, gene

expression and other factors. Tortoises changes their gender when temperature changes and

some species dont have the metabolism to survive. World is suffering damages so fast that is

impossible believe humans arent involved. C oul dnt be the principal cause, but is an

important factor. This article will show how global warming can the structure, metabolism,

morphology and the ecology of organisms.


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Main Point #1

As temperature of earths surface change, organisms and microrganisms are force to change.

Their suffer biochemical, physics, physiological, and ecological changes as a defense to

survive. Ecometabolomic studies ilustrated the large capacity of plants and animals to present

plastic molecular responses to drought and warming (Penuelas et. al, 2013, p. 2304). In plants,

a gene expression causes and increase of several enzymes in response drought conditions to

obtain more water, but in this process they lost a lot of nutrients. These molecular responses

in plants also depends the specie of plant and their habitat, the same can be apply in

morphological and physiological changes. In many species, can be observed that

physiological changes to increase their efficiency result in decline of growth and

reproductive.

In insects, the responses to warming temperature are an increase in metabolism and

respiration and the production of heat-shock proteins (Penuelas et al, 2013, p. 2319) so they

can survive temperatures that exceed the thermal limit. Warming also has significant direct

effects on animal phenology by lengthening the period of summer activity and by increasing

the number of reproductive cycles and larval size (Penuelas et al, 2013, p. 2320).

The reproduction gets down and declines the population, so mortality grows, it depends on the

kind of specie and their habitat. Climate change can stimulate some species to migrate and

adapt, but not all the species can really do this.


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Main Point #2

In ectoterms, extreme conditions, like very high or very low temperatures, can cause loss of

mass and mortality. 27 degrees Celsius represent more mortality than in dry conditions, also

the deaths occur more rapidly than under cool and dry conditions, which shows more

gradually deaths. (Rohr and Palmer, 2012, p. 1).

Species, like tortoises, can change their gender in response to climate change and result in a

serious ecological problem, because the temperature acts before they born, when theyre

growing. So if the climate change, only one gender of tortoise will born and, consequently,

theyll extinct.

Those species that live in sites with limited possibilities for migration, such as moutainous

areas or islands, have a high risk of local extinction (Penuelas et al, 2013, p. 2324). This is

one more reason to believe that the habitat and wheter conditions will select the stronger

species.

Main Point #3

Climate change may shift the distributions, abundances, timing, and ecological presence of

species, thereby changing structures and functions of marine biological communities. (Okey,

Alidina, Jessen, 2014, p. 531). Physiological stress can change the balance of competition or

predation, which shift species compositions.

The shift in life conditions can cause migrations of marine species to new regions with other

kind of species that can be affected and killed by the stress and competition. The level of


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References

Hobday, A.J., Pecl, G. T. (2013, September 23). Identification of global marine hotspots:

sentence for change and vanguards for adaptation action. Springer Science + Business

Media Dordrecht . Retrieved from: http://link.springer.com.proxy.lib.siu.edu/article/10.

1007/s11160-013-9326-6/fulltext.html

Okey, T. A., Alidina H. M., Lo, V., Jessen S. (2014, February 22). Effects of climate change

on Canadas Pacific marine ecosystems: a summary of scientific knowledge. Springer

International Publishing Switzerland. Retrieved from: http://link.springer.com.proxy.l

ib.siu.edu/article/10.1007/s11160-014-9342-1/fulltext.html

Bahn, M., Reichstein, M., Dukes, J. S., Smith, M. D., McDowell, N.G. (2013). Climate-

biosphere interactions in a more extreme world. New phytologist . Retrieved from:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.lib.siu.edu/doi/ 10. 1111/nph.12662/full

Penuelas et al. (2013, January 14). Evidence of current impact of climate change on life: a

walk from genes to the biosphere. Global Change Biology . Retrieved from: http://

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12143/full

Rohr, J.R., Palmer, B. D. (2012, October 22). Climate Change, Multiple Stressors, and the

Decline of Ectotherms. Conservation Biology . Retrieved from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.

com.proxy.lib.siu.edu/doi/10.1111/cobi.12086/full

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Argumentative Essay – Draft #1 - Stephanie