It’s no secret that human impacts on our planet are having widely detrimental impacts, on everything from our atmosphere to our jungles, our land to our sea, with countless species that once walked our Earth now extinct as a result of our activities.

Though some of the more obvious creatures are those like the elephant and rhino, who have almost been hunted to extinction, or the the orangutan and gorilla, who are massively suffering thanks to habitat loss, further serious consequences are occurring out of obvious sight.

As our continued destruction of our climate increasingly affects our oceans, it’s no wonder that our marine ecosystems are suffering too.

And a new study, recently published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, has exposed just how the climate crisis is affecting even our most fearsome of apex predators.

There are many ways in which the climate crisis is affecting our oceans, with our rapidly heating planet melting ice caps and causing rising sea levels, and warming our oceans in equal measure.

But it is ocean acidification – a result of the seas absorbing excess carbon dioxide from our environment, mostly a result of our relentless burning of fossil fuels – that is most alarming in this particular study, especially since water pH is projected to be ten times more acidic than it is now, by the year 2300.

And according to the researchers, this gradual acidification is having concerning effects on shark teeth, with their experiments proving that every part of their teeth microstructure is being affected by this changing pH.

For the sharks, who rely on their teeth for hunting, this damage could be devastating, as biologist Maximilian Baum explained in a statement:

“Shark teeth, despite being composed of highly mineralized phosphates, are still vulnerable to corrosion under future ocean acidification scenarios. They are high developed weapons built for cutting flesh, not resisting ocean acid. Our results show just how vulnerable even nature’s sharpest weapons can be.”

In order to understand the effects of acidification on shark teeth, the researchers placed undamaged teeth in tanks of acidic water for eight weeks. One of the tanks had a pH of 8.1 (the current levels in our oceans), while the other was at 7.3 (the level expected by 2300).

And the damage to the teeth at the projected pH level at the turn of the next century was alarming, with cracks and holes, corrosion on the roots and damage to the structure of the teeth – and all after just eight weeks.

All of this damage would cause the shark’s teeth to become much weaker, meaning that they were more likely to break. While sharks routinely regenerate their teeth, it is unlikely that they would be able to replace their teeth as rapidly as this damage might require, which is concerning to scientists – with repercussions not only affecting shark populations, but entire ecosystems – as Baum continued:

“Even moderate drops in pH could affect more sensitive species with slow tooth replication circles or have cumulative impacts over time. Maintaining ocean pH near the current average of 8.1 could be critical for the physical integrity of predators’ tools.”

With not only our own lives, but our planet’s valuable ecosystems in mind, it’s more important than ever that we work to protect our climate.

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