14 August 2009
Healthiest US Coral Reef is in Gulf of Mexico
Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary is among the healthiest coral reef ecosystems in the US Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, according to a new NOAA report.Sanctuary managers will use the report to track and monitor changes in the marine ecosystem located 70 to 115 miles off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.
“We found that 50 percent of the area surveyed for this report is covered by live coral,” said Chris Caldow, a NOAA marine biologist and lead author on the report. “This is significant because such high coral cover is a real rarity and provides critical habitat for many different types of fish and other animals that live in these underwater systems.”
The sanctuary also is unusual in that it is dominated by top-level predators, including large grouper, jacks, and snappers that are virtually absent throughout the U.S. Caribbean. Researchers looked at the relationship between physical measures of the sanctuary’s habitat such as depth, slope and geographic location, and the nature of the fish community in each location.
The report cautions that despite the sanctuary’s relatively healthy condition, it may be more susceptible to environmental impacts than previously thought. For example, scientists observed high levels of coral bleaching and corals severely impacted from hurricane activity.
NOAA predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages the US coastal and marine resources.
For more on Flower Garden Banks see the NOOA site.
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2 July 2009
Belize barrier reef in Danger
The reef was added as a world heritage site in 1996 as the largest barrier reef in the northern hemisphere, with offshore atolls, several hundred sand cays, mangrove forests, coastal lagoons and estuaries.
The main problem with Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System concerns mangrove cutting and excessive development. The reef is also the country’s top tourist destination.
While requesting stricter control of development on the site, the World Heritage Committee also requested that the moratorium on mangrove cutting on the site which expired in 2008 be reinstated.
Further Reading:
List of World Heritage in Danger
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Labels: Belize, coral reef, SCUBA diving, SCUBA News, SCUBA Travel
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21 May 2009
Manage corals and minimise climate change
A better assessment of the threats to coral reefs along with improved management will give corals a much higher chance of survival in the face of warming oceans, says IUCN's latest report.“We already know that climate change is destroying coral reefs through warming waters that cause coral bleaching and through acidifying oceans that hinders coral skeleton growth. We also know that if we want to save these beautiful living entities we must do something about it immediately,” says Gabriel Grimsditch, IUCN Corals Expert.
The report, Resilience Assessment of Coral Reefs - Rapid assessment protocol for coral reefs, focusing on coral bleaching and thermal stress, shows that the amount of damage done to corals depends not only on the rate and extent of climate change, but also on the ability of coral reefs to cope with change. This report outlines a protocol that defines basic resilience indicators that can be quantified using rapid assessment methods.
The need for quick results for measuring coral reef resilience is becoming increasingly acute, especially in the developing world. It is crucial to develop monitoring and assessment protocols to build an understanding of bleaching resistance and resilience indicators for application in management, and to determine how Marine Protected Area management actions can influence resilience and resistance.
"Research assessment for coral reefs builds our understanding of past management actions in maintaining the resilience of coral reefs, and helps managers combat the effects of climate change,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Head of IUCN’s Global Marine Programme. “Greater investment must be made in using research findings for adaptive management.”
“The story of coral reefs is particularly powerful and compelling, being one of the first ecosystems to clearly show climate change impacts, and being well-understood, highly visible and charismatic,” adds Lundin. “As a result, increasing our knowledge base of resilience-based science, management and policy for coral reefs has broader value for other ecological and human systems globally.”
“Findings from coral reefs should be more efficiently incorporated into the United Nations’ climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December.”
IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network - a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and non-government member organisations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries.
Read the report: Resilience Assessment of Coral Reefs - Rapid assessment protocol for coral reefs
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18 December 2008
Fifth of corals dead: only emission cuts can save the rest, says IUCN
The world has lost 19 percent of its coral reefs, according to the 2008 global update of the world’s reef status.The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, shows if current trends in carbon dioxide emissions continue, many of the remaining reefs may be lost over the next 20 to 40 years. This will have alarming consequences for some 500 million people who depend on coral reefs for their livelihoods.
Climate change is considered the biggest threat to coral reefs today. The main climate threats, such as increasing sea surface temperatures and seawater acidification, are being exacerbated by other threats including overfishing, pollution and invasive species.
“If nothing changes, we are looking at a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide in less than 50 years,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Head of the IUCN Global Marine Programme, one of the organizations behind the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. “As this carbon is absorbed, the oceans will become more acidic, which is seriously damaging a wide range of marine life from corals to plankton communities and from lobsters to seagrasses.”
Encouragingly, 45 percent of the world’s reefs are currently healthy. Another sign of hope is the ability of some corals to recover after major bleaching events, caused by warming waters, and to adapt to climate change threats.
However, the report shows that, globally, the downward trend of recent years has not been reversed. Major threats in the last four years, including the Indian Ocean tsunami, more occurrences of bleaching, outbreaks of coral diseases and ever-heavier human pressures, have slowed or reversed recovery of some coral reefs after the 1998 mass bleaching event.
“The report details the strong scientific consensus that climate change must be limited to the absolute minimum. If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions,” says Clive Wilkinson, Coordinator of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.
Corals have a higher chance of survival in times of climate change if other stress factors related to human activity are minimized. Well-managed marine protected areas can also boost the health of coral reefs, but proper enforcement is difficult, especially in remote areas where the most pristine reefs are found.
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11 July 2008
One Third of Reef-Building Corals Face Extinction
One third of reef-building corals around the world are threatened with extinction, according to the first-ever comprehensive global assessment to determine their conservation status. The study findings were published yesterday by Science Express.Leading coral experts joined forces with the Global Marine Species Assessment (GMSA) – a joint initiative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Conservation International (CI) – to apply the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria to this important group of marine species.
“The results of this study are very disconcerting,” stated Kent Carpenter, lead author of the Science article, GMSA Director, IUCN Species Programme. “When corals die off, so do the other plants and animals that depend on coral reefs for food and shelter, and this can lead to the collapse of entire ecosystems.”
Built over millions of years, coral reefs are home to more than 25 percent of marine species, making them the most biologically diverse of marine ecosystems. Corals produce reefs in shallow tropical and sub-tropical seas and have been shown to be highly sensitive to changes in their environment.
Researchers identified the main threats to corals as climate change and localized stresses resulting from destructive fishing, declining water quality from pollution, and the degradation of coastal habitats. Climate change causes rising water temperatures and more intense solar radiation, which lead to coral bleaching and disease often resulting in mass coral mortality.
Shallow water corals have a symbiotic relationship with algae called zooxanthellae, which live in their soft tissues and provide the coral with essential nutrients and energy from photosynthesis and are the reason why corals have such beautiful colors. Coral bleaching is the result of a stress response, such as increased water temperatures, whereby the algae are expelled from the tissues, hence the term “bleaching.” Corals that have been bleached are weaker and more prone to attack from disease. Scientists believe that increased coral disease also is linked to higher sea temperatures and an increase in run-off pollution and sediments from the land.
Researchers predict that ocean acidification will be another serious threat facing coral reefs. As oceans absorb increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, water acidity increases and pH decreases, severely impacting corals’ ability to build their skeletons that form the foundation of reefs.
The 39 scientists who co-authored this study agree that if rising sea surface temperatures continue to cause increased frequency of bleaching and disease events, many corals may not have enough time to replenish themselves and this could lead to extinctions.
“These results show that as a group, reef-building corals are more at risk of extinction than all terrestrial groups, apart from amphibians, and are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change,” said Roger McManus, CI’s vice president for marine programs. “The loss of the corals will have profound implications for millions of people who depend on coral reefs for their livelihoods.”
Coral reefs harbor fish and other marine resources important for coastal communities. They also help protect coastal towns and other near-shore habitats from severe erosion and flooding caused by tropical storms.
Staghorn (Acroporid) corals face the highest risk of extinction, with 52 percent of species listed in a threatened category. The Caribbean region has the highest number of highly threatened corals (Endangered and Critically Endangered), including the iconic elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) which is listed as Critically Endangered. The high biodiversity “Coral Triangle” in the western Pacific’s Indo-Malay-Philippine Archipelago has the highest proportions of Vulnerable and Near-Threatened species in the Indo-Pacific, largely resulting from the high concentration of people living in many parts of the region.
Corals from the genera Favia and Porites were found to be the least threatened due to their relatively higher resistance to bleaching and disease. In addition, 141 species lacked sufficient information to be fully assessed and were therefore listed as Data Deficient. However, researchers believe that many of these species would have been listed as threatened if more information were available.
The results emphasize the widespread plight of coral reefs and the urgent need to enact conservation measures. “We either reduce our CO2 emission now or many corals will be lost forever,” says Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General. “Improving water quality, global education and the adequate funding of local conservation practices also are essential to protect the foundation of beautiful and valuable coral reef ecosystems.”
Coral experts participated in three workshops to analyze data on 845 reef-building coral species, including population range and size, life history traits, susceptibility to threats, and estimates of regional coral cover loss.
The reef-building corals assessment is one group of a number of strategic global assessments of marine species the GMSA has been conducting since 2006 at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Other assessments are being conducted on seagrasses and mangroves that are also important habitat-forming species, all marine fishes, and other important keystone invertebrates. By 2012, the GMSA plans to complete its comprehensive first stage assessment of the threat of extinction for over 20,000 marine plants and animals, providing an essential baseline for conservation plans around the world, and tracking the extinction risk of marine species.
The results of the coral species assessment will be placed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in October 2008. Currently, the assessments can be found at
http://www.sci.odu.edu/gmsa/about/corals.shtml
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Labels: coral, coral reef, environment, marine biology, research
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20 June 2008
ROV Finds New Coral Species
Researchers on the third-largest atoll in the world, the Saba Bank in the Netherlands Antilles, have discovered and collected two new species of soft corals (gorgonians) and documented severe anchor damage with the aid of a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) from Seabotix. Experts from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami collected 40 species of soft corals, seventeen of which were collected using the ROV.The SeaBotix LBV200L is rated to 200m (656 ft.) and includes fiber optic video, LED lighting, and powerful brushless thrusters. An optional grabber arm was used to collect the deepest new soft coral species at 70 m (230 ft.), a depth that would be impractical to explore using conventional diving techniques. Shelley Lundvall, Project Coordinator for the Saba Bank project, said, “The LBV (ROV) has helped us explore the deeper areas of the bank that nobody has seen before. We have also been able to add to the species diversity of gorgonians found on the Saba Bank”.
The ultimate goal of the research is to receive official recognition of the Saba Bank as a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in order to regulate international shipping that occurs within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Netherlands Antilles. A management plan is now being drafted with the goal of enforcing existing and new regulations to protect the incredible diversity of Saba Bank marine life.
Another discovery emphasised the importance of the PSSA designation: “One of the most dramatic moments was when we found an anchor and chain scar on the bottom...The ability to document the damage done by these large ships is critical in getting the Saba Bank designated as a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area”, commented Shelley.
The video of this significant damage, as well as the actual recovery of the soft corals can be seen at www.youtube.com/slundvall
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Labels: coral, coral reef
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12 March 2008
Global warming turns fish deaf
Is it important that global warming turns fish deaf? Yes. For coral reef fish, sound is vital for them to judge where to settle down and live.After hatching, reef fish larvae are dispersed by ocean currents for a few weeks. The larval fish must then find their way back to a suitable reef to make their home.
It's thought that the young fish home in on high-frequency noises. Coral reefs are extremely noisy environments, with the crackle of snapping shrimps and the chatter of fish set against a backdrop of wind, rain and surf. Sound carries well underwater, and most fish have great hearing.
Global warming and more acidic oceans, though, can cause fish to be born with deformed earbones. Reasearchers at the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville and the University of Edinburgh, suspected that it might be harder for these fish to pinpoint the origin of a sound, increasing the chance they would get lost in the ocean. And, indeed, their results show that this is so.
Journal References and Further Reading:
Proceedings of the Royal Society, Volume 275, Number 1634 / March 07, 2008
Animal Behaviour, doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.11.004
SOUND: The essential navigation cue for young reef fishes to find their way home
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Labels: coral reef, environment, fish, marine biology, research, sealife
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16 October 2007
Scientists develop artificial coral reef in Red Sea
Take a dive off the coast of Eilat these days and you're liable to find yourself swimming around a huge yellow concrete and wire construction that stretches four yards up from the seabed, is four yards wide, and is full of holes.
The reef is a unique new approach to conservation in the Red Sea and part of a joint co-operative project between Israel and Jordan.
Dr. Nadav Shashar, the supervisor of the research project, and a marine biologist at the National Center for Mariculture, says "Because of the increase in the number of visitors, the coral reefs are unable to overcome the damage caused and are beginning to die out.
Part of the problem is novice divers. "They kick up the sand, or damage the corals by accident. Multiple that by 100,000 people and that's considerable damage," says Shashar. "These people don't mean to harm the reefs, but they just don't know how to dive properly."
The developers hope that the artificial reef will create a new attraction for these divers, steering them away from the natural reefs, reducing the pressure there and enabling them to recover from some of the damage inflicted on them over the last few years.
At the same time, the Tamar reef which is located near Coral Beach also provides the researchers with a unique underwater laboratory, enabling them to observe and unravel the development and growth of this unique and complex ecosystem.
Further reading: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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17 May 2007
Healthy Coral Reefs Hit Hard by Warmer Temperatures
Coral disease outbreaks have struck the healthiest sections of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, where for the first time researchers have conclusively linked disease severity and ocean temperature. Close living quarters among coral may make it easy for infection to spread, researchers have found."With this study, speculation about the impacts of global warming on the spread of infectious diseases among susceptible marine species has been brought to an end," said Don Rice, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Chemical Oceanography Program, which funded the research through the joint NSF-National Institutes of Health Ecology of Infectious Diseases Program.
For 6 years, the international research team, led by University of North Carolina (UNC)-Chapel Hill, tracked an infection called white syndrome in 48 reefs along more than 900 miles (1,500 kilometers) of Australia's coastline.
The colorful coral colonies that attract visitors to the Great Barrier Reef live atop a limestone scaffolding built from the calcium carbonate secretions of each tiny coral, or polyp. While polyps provide the framework, coral's vivid hues come from symbiotic single-celled algae that live in the polyps. The algae supply much of the food coral need to survive.
When disease or stressful environmental conditions strike a coral colony, the polyps expel their algae. This algae loss makes the coral appear pale.
"We're left with a big question. Can corals and other marine species successfully adapt or evolve, when faced with such change?" Rice said.
Understanding the causes of disease outbreaks will help ecologists protect reef-building corals, which support commercial marine species and buffer low-lying coastal areas.
"More diseases are infecting more coral species every year, leading to the global loss of reef-building corals and the decline of other important species dependent on reefs," said lead study author John Bruno at UNC. "We've long suspected climate change is driving disease outbreaks. Our results suggest that warmer temperatures are increasing the severity of disease in the ocean."
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Labels: Australia, coral, coral reef, environment, marine biology
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