Environmental Science, 10th Edition (Cunningham)

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Overview: Shrimp Ponds, Thailand, p. 527

This causes a number of environmental problems. Construction of these ponds destroys valuable coastal habitat—particularly mangrove forests that once protected coastlines and acted as a nursery for a wide variety of sea life. In the densely crowed ponds, diseases spread quickly, so that operators need to use high levels of pesticides and antibiotics to keep the shrimp healthy. Waste water from the ponds—rich in uneaten food, feces, dead animals, antibiotics, and cleansing agents—contaminates near coastal waters and results in eutrophication. Few farmers successfully complete the full life-cycle of the shrimp in captivity. Instead, shrimp larvae are harvested from the wild—thus depleting native stocks and other species caught along with the shrimp—and introduced into the ponds. Shrimp are carnivorous, so wild fish are caught and processed into fishmeal for shrimp food. By some estimates, one-third of all wild-caught fish now go into fishmeal for various types of aquaculture. This is a tremendous drain on wild fish populations.

1			What ecological services do these ponds rely on?
			A)	Clean water
			B)	Food resources
			C)	Natural production of fish larvae (which depends in turn on healthy coastal ecosystem complexes in which shrimp reproduce)
			D)	All of the responses above
2			What ecological services may be impaired by these ponds? (Hint: To begin, think about the effects of losing coastal mangroves.)
			A)	The ecological services are all too resilient to be impaired by these ponds.
			B)	Clean water may be impaired by these ponds.
			C)	Food resources, such as fish, may be impaired by these ponds.
			D)	Natural production of fish larvae may be impaired by these ponds.
			E)	All of these ecological services may be impaired by these ponds.