Based on a recent study, a decrease in certain oceanic predators will directly effect the large fish populations that serve well for obtaining carbon and storing it long term. Apparently, larger fish populations are crucial in the on going accumulation of carbon and the storage of it in certain coastal seaboard regions, like salt marshes and sea grass vegetation. The mass over harvesting not only effects the climatology of the world, but the environment's aquatic food web. Professor Rod Connolly of Griffith University in Australia stated in a recent news release that their impact on this food web "ultimately changes the amount of carbon captured and locked up in the seabed." Due to a growing recency of shark attacks of the coasts of Australia, this idea of a shrinking shark population has been brought up in heated debates as to whether or not the culling of sharks is a good idea after all. The people do not see that large predator removal has long term and seemingly instantaneous effects as to how much carbon is locked up in the seabeds. Along with the predators' help, the coastal wetlands have a key role as well; burying the mud in the carbon for hundreds and thousands of years. "When we change the abundance of higher order predators, this affects the number of smaller animals living in the mud, and that has flow-on effects for carbon storage in coastal wetlands" (Connolly 6). These wetlands are so beneficial that they manage to take a quarter of a trillion kg of CO2 out of the atmosphere per year. The vital role played by all large ocean predators cannot be matched by anyone else, nor can their high position in the food chain hierarchy be overlooked.
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/30687/20151002/scientists-claim-ocean-predators-help-reverse-climate-change.htm
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/30687/20151002/scientists-claim-ocean-predators-help-reverse-climate-change.htm