First-Ever Aerial Map of Hawaii’s Coral Creates Groundbreaking Conservation Tool
15 December 2020
Oceans
The Arizona State University Global Airborne Observatory on a mapping mission over north Maui Island coast. Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science / Arizona State University
A team of scientists has created the first-ever aerial map of the coral reefs surrounding the main Hawaiian Islands, in a breakthrough researchers hope will assist reef conservation in the islands and beyond.
<p>The map, written up in a <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/12/09/2017628117" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article Monday</a>, was able to show the geographic distribution of live coral around the island chain at 16 meters (approximately 52 feet) of depth and also pinpoint where the corals were more or less impacted by human activity. </p>
<p>"Never before has there been such a detailed and synoptic view of live corals at this scale," study co-author Jamison Gove of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told <a href="https://asunow.asu.edu/20201214-mapping-corals-sky-guides-reef-conservation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ASU Now</a>.<br></p><p><span></span>The research was led by the Arizona State University's (ASU) Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science (GDCS). The scientists sought to resolve several challenges with mapping coral reefs as they face unprecedented challenges.</p><p>Because of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ocean-acidification" target="_self">ocean acidification</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-bleaching" target="_self">coral bleaching</a> caused by the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>, as well as problems like runoff from coastal development, 75 percent of the world's coral reefs could face critical threats by 2050. But, in order to protect these reefs, it is important to know where they are. On-the-ground mapping is inherently limited in scope, while satellite images do not provide enough detail.</p><p>This is the problem GDCS researchers sought to solve with their Global Airborne Observatory. This is an airborne lab that combines two processes to create detailed maps, <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/mapping-coral-reefs-from-sky-guides-conservation-efforts/" target="_blank">Courthouse News Service explained</a>. These techniques are laser-guided imaging spectroscopy, which is often used to map complicated landscapes like forests, and artificial intelligence.</p><p>"We undertook this first-ever mapping of a large archipelago to determine where corals live in Hawaiian waters despite repeated heatwaves and problematic coastal development issues," lead study author and GDCS Director Greg Asner told ASU Now. "It's this basic information that is needed by partner organizations to drive more cost-effective protections, restoration activities, and public engagement."</p>
<p>Hawaii's reefs, like reefs worldwide, face major challenges. Marine heatwaves in 2015 and 2019 caused bleaching events, while coastal development and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fishing" target="_self">fishing</a> have also harmed reefs through factors like pollution and sedimentation. The mapping found that on Oahu, for example, only 12 percent of the island's reefs still had live coral. There was likely three times as much living coral surrounding the island 200 years ago, <a href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/12/scientists-unveil-new-3d-maps-in-race-to-save-hawaii-coral/" target="_blank">Asner told Honolulu Civil Beat</a>.</p><p>The study found that around 60 percent of the presence or absence of living coral could be explained water depth, wave power or coastal development. Overall, the biggest human impacts on Hawaii's coral were nearshore development, water quality, sea surface temperature and non-commercial fishing, in that order, <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_asner/status/1338624936886210560" target="_blank">Asner tweeted</a>.</p>
<div id="a39b0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2f41ae6d4481a1e9bfedfcd5c37ba5ab"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1338624936886210560" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The distribution of live corals in the main Hawaiian Islands was determined by mapping and AI-driven analyses. In d… https://t.co/X8H6nIsmcj</div> — Greg Asner (@Greg Asner)<a href="https://twitter.com/greg_asner/statuses/1338624936886210560">1607988030.0</a></blockquote></div><p>But the mapping also turned up places, known as refugia, where coral proved to be resilient to human impacts, ASU Now reported. Asner told Honolulu Civil Beat that the map could be used to help policymakers determine which reefs, like the refugia, to protect; which areas would be ideal for restoration; and which were so degraded that perhaps it is not worth the effort to restore them given limited resources.</p><p>"Operational mapping of live coral cover within and across Hawaii's reef ecosystems affords opportunities for managers and policymakers to better address reef protection, resilience and restoration," study coauthor and head of Hawaii's Division of Aquatic Resources Brian Neilson told ASU Now. "With these new maps, we have a better shot at protecting what we have while focusing on where to improve conditions for corals and the myriad of species that depend upon corals."</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Coral Reefs Are Still Growing Atolls Despite Sea Level Rise ... ›
- Coral Reef Tipping Point: 'Near-Annual' Bleaching May Occur ... ›
- Scientists Discover Massive Coral Reef Taller Than Empire State ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Ailinglaplap Atoll, of which Jeh Island forms a part. Reinhard Dirscherl / The Image Bank / Getty Images
Sea level rise caused by the climate crisis is considered a major threat to low-lying Pacific atolls. Despite this, however, some of these islands are actually growing.
<p>Now, a <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020GL088752" target="_blank">recent study</a> published in Geophysical Research Letters Nov. 20 has figured out why. The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs" target="_self">coral reefs</a> that give these islands their structure are continuing to produce sediment.</p><p>"The big picture with this is the modern day coral reef can build an island even though the sea level is rising," study coauthor and University of Auckland senior lecturer Dr. Murray Ford told <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/123559259/the-pacific-islands-which-are-growing-despite-sea-level-rise" target="_blank">Stuff</a>.</p>
<p>Atolls are islands situated on top of rings of coral, with a lagoon in the center. Past studies have indicated that several of these islands have actually been growing, despite the threat of rising sea levels. A <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.557" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2018 analysis</a> of 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls including 709 islands found that none of the atolls had lost land area in the preceding decades and that 88.6 percent of the islands had either increased their size or stayed the same.</p><p>"That started a bit of a goldrush in terms of studies," Ford told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/06/asia/pacific-islands-growing-intl-dst-hnk/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CNN</a>. "The signal was kind of consistent -- there's no widespread chronic erosion of atoll islands in the Pacific."</p><p>To understand what was going on, Ford and his team focused on Jeh Island in the Marshall Islands, where sea levels have risen by 0.3 inches a year since 1993. They used aerial photographs to confirm that the island had increased in size by 13 percent between 1943 and 2015. In fact, sediment had actually caused two separate islands to merge and a spit at the island's western end to grow longer, Stuff explained.</p>
<p>The researchers also used radiocarbon dating to confirm that much of the new sediment was deposited after 1950. This is an important finding, because scientists had previously been unsure if the islands were increasing in size because of new material or recycled reef pieces.</p><p>"This is the first time we can see the islands form, and we can say the stuff making that island is modern ... so it must be coming from the reef around the island," Ford told CNN. "It's entirely the skeletons of the reef and the organisms that live on it."</p><p>Ford told Stuff that more research was needed to discover if the same process was taking place on other growing atolls. Further, it isn't certain if coral reefs will continue to protect the atolls from sea level rise in the future. Increased <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" target="_self">flooding</a> could still damage fresh water supplies, CNN pointed out. A <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/atoll-islands-sea-level-rise-2567585255.html" target="_self">2018 study</a> found that the contamination of fresh water supplies with salt water could make atolls uninhabitable by 2050. And the climate crisis threatens reefs themselves with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-bleaching" target="_self">coral bleaching</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ocean-acidification" target="_self">ocean acidification</a>.</p><p>"It's all about the reef health, being able to produce sand and gravel to help make these islands and maintain them," Ford told Stuff.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Ocean Warming Threatens Coral Reefs and Soon Could Make It ... ›
- Ocean Acidification Causing Coral Reefs to Be Less Resilient to ... ›
- Sea Levels Could Rise More Than 4 Feet by 2100 - EcoWatch ›
- First-Ever Aerial Map of Hawaii’s Coral Creates Groundbreaking Conservation Tool - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Schmidt Ocean Institute's R/V Falkor held position as the ROV SuBastian explored the new reef. Dean Miller / Schmidt Ocean Institute
Australian scientists have discovered a massive detached coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef. It is the eighth detached reef discovered in the northern Great Barrier Reef and the first to be discovered in over 120 years.
<p>According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/28/scientists-discover-500-metre-tall-skyscraper-reef-at-australias-great-barrier-reef" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, detached reefs are not part of the main body of the Great Barrier Reef and instead spring from the ocean floor off the continental shelf. These types of reefs act like isolated seamounts because there is a lot of deep water between them and the next coral community, explained team lead Robin Beaman to The Guardian. This opens up the possibility of unique species evolving.</p>
<p>The reef was first spotted on Oct. 20 by scientists conducting underwater mapping of the seafloor off of a Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) research vessel, reported <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/great-barrier-reef-coral-empire-state-building-1542066" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>.</p><p>"This unexpected discovery affirms that we continue to find unknown structures and new species in our Ocean," Wendy Schmidt, SOI co-founder, said in a <a href="https://schmidtocean.org/australian-scientists-discover-500-meter-tall-coral-reef-in-the-great-barrier-reef-first-to-be-discovered-in-over-120-years/" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p><p>The team 3-D mapped the reef in detail and used an underwater robot named SuBastian to explore the reef and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Ee7JV5oSI&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">live-stream video</a>.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYzMjY1MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzY0NTI5NX0.54q8qPEVj9YlvrafMy1KlPiH6HfqVMrXDkUWIFPG984/img.jpg?width=980" id="eaf53" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f355085be277671048b31af47c17a542" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2560" data-height="977" />
A newly-discovered 1,600-foot tall detached reef in the Great Barrier Reef was discovered, 3-D mapped and filmed by Australian scientists. Schmidt Ocean Institute
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5f7514f247cc7f7ac1840546caff2459"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kwzg6VwK7NU?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>While the newly discovered reef does not appear to have a lot of hard corals in the shallowest section, SuBastian observed "an incredible abundance" of sponges, sea fans and soft corals in addition to reef fish and grey reef sharks, reported The Guardian. This rich <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> suggests that the area is rich in nutrients that are carried from deep waters by strong currents and upwellings, the news report said.</p><p>"We are surprised and elated by what we have found," Beaman said in the SOI statement. "To not only 3D map the reef in detail, but also visually see this discovery with SuBastian is incredible."</p>
<p>Scientists estimated the reef to be 20 million years old at its deepest point, reported <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-10-27/reef-detached-discovered-cape-york/12816760" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ABC News</a>. The base of the reef is almost 5,000 feet wide, and it rises 1,600 feet tall — dwarfing iconic skyscrapers like the Empire State Building in New York City and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coral-reef-taller-empire-state-building-discovered-australia-s-great-n1244955" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NBC</a> reported. At its shallowest, the peak is just 130 feet below the ocean's surface.</p><p>"To find a new half-a-kilometer tall reef in the offshore Cape York area of the well-recognized Great Barrier Reef shows how mysterious the world is just beyond our coastline," said Jyotika Virmani, SOI executive director, in the SOI statement. "This powerful combination of mapping data and underwater imagery will be used to understand this new reef and its role within the incredible Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area."</p>
<p>According to Newsweek, the Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure in the world. It comprises nearly 133,000 square miles which include 3,000 coral reefs, 600 continental islands and 150 mangrove islands.</p><p>Despite its massive size, the reef is <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/great-barrier-reef-bleaching-2645210028.html" target="_self">under severe threat</a>. The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/australia-great-barrier-reef-poor-2640118306.html" target="_self">outlook is "very poor</a>" because the climate crisis has raised ocean temperatures, which can stress corals and cause them to "bleach" or expel symbiotic algae, leaving white coral skeletons exposed. While not deadly, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-bleaching" target="_self">coral bleaching</a> leaves the animal vulnerable, and prolonged or repeated bleaching events have been known to kill coral reefs, reported Newsweek. Recently, another team of scientists estimated that the Great Barrier Reef has already <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/great-barrier-reef-corals-climate-crisis-2648203228.html" target="_self">lost half of its corals to the climate crisis</a>.</p><p>Co-author of that study, Terry Hughes of James Cook University urged, "We still have an opportunity to save the reef if we deal with climate change. 1.1 degrees of warming so far has triggered five bleaching events since 1998 [but] we still have half a reef," reported ABC News.</p><p>The scientists will continue to map the area until mid-November. Earlier discoveries on this same research cruise included what is believed to be the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/worlds-longest-animal-ocean-2645712197.html" target="_self">longest recorded sea creature</a>, a siphonophore potentially longer than 390 feet. The new reef and the other findings will likely lead to years of study, The Guardian reported.</p><p>"This is evidence for the importance of exploring our undersea environment so that we can protect it," SOI spokesperson Carlie Wiener told ABC News.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYzMjY3Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjkyMTg5OX0.DTuQMkPdn9QJ37dTVO2GnK5D52WEfTvhO62PAR3ZtYg/img.jpg?width=980" id="92193" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0483a91913e037d071912ed850908883" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="800" data-height="450" />
Scientists used a robot to capture video of the enormous detached reef found off Australia's northern coast. Schmidt Ocean Institute
From Your Site Articles
- Australia Throws Great Barrier Reef a $300 Million Lifeline, but Will It ... ›
- The Climate Crisis Has Already Cost the Great Barrier Reef More ... ›
- Oceans Can Recover by 2050, Study Shows ›
- This Robot Is Delivering Coral Babies to the Great Barrier Reef ... ›
- Coral Reefs Could Be Completely Lost to the Climate Crisis by 2100 ... ›
- First-Ever Aerial Map of Hawaii’s Coral Creates Groundbreaking Conservation Tool - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Trending
Key West voters have passed three ballot initiatives to limit the impact of visiting cruise ships on island life and fragile marine habitats. felixmizioznikov / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Despite being a well-known port of call on the Caribbean cruise circuit, the City of Key West voted to ban large cruise ships from visiting and to restrict foot traffic from vessels. Supporters and opponents disagreed about the safety, environmental and economic merits of the proposals.
<p>On election day, local voters passed three ballot initiatives to limit the impact of visiting cruise ships on island life and fragile marine habitats. According to the local <a href="https://www.keys-elections.org/Election-Data/Past-County-Results-2009-Current" target="_blank">Board of Elections</a>, 63% of residents voted to ban ships with capacities larger than 1,300 passengers from docking at all; 61% voted to limit the total daily number of passengers disembarking to 1,500; and 81% supported a measure that prioritizes cruise lines with the best environmental and health records to fill those 1,500 slots.</p><p>The referenda are effective immediately and binding but are expected to be challenged in court, reported <a href="https://thepointsguy.com/news/key-west-cruise-ship-ban/" target="_blank">The Points Guy</a> and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2020/11/05/key-west-florida-voters-opt-ban-large-cruise-ships-visiting/6171877002/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">USA TODAY</a>.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.safercleanerships.com/" target="_blank">Key West Committee for Safer, Cleaner Ships (SCS)</a>, who spearheaded the effort, a cruise line's environmental record will be determined by the number of environmental violations, penalties and fines accumulated. Health scores will be determined under the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/default.htm" target="_blank">Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Vessel Sanitation Program</a>.</p><p>"For decades, the City of Key West has done nothing to regulate cruise ships, despite growing local frustrations with the threats large cruise ships pose to the environment, quality of life and sustainable economic growth," SCS treasurer and outspoken opponent of large ships Arlo Haskell explained to EcoWatch. "The fact that cruise ships now pose a clear risk to public health due to Covid-19 was, for us, the last straw."</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/environmental-report-card-grades-cruise-ships-1881802453.html" target="_self">Cruise ships often damage the environment</a>. In addition to creating <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/cruise-ships-toxic-water-sea-2640805829.html?share_id=4932404" target="_self">vast amounts of waste and carbon emissions</a>, they also degrade nearby habitats.</p>
<p><a href="https://floridakeys.surfrider.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Surfrider Florida Keys (SRFK)</a> supported the three initiatives to "give our coral reefs and marine environment a voice," said vice-chair Whitney Wemett. The local <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs">coral reefs</a> serve as vital nursery grounds, aggregation spots, habitat and food source for many marine species, she noted.</p><p>According to Haskell, the Key West port is narrow, shallow and long. It's also located right next to part of the only barrier coral reef in the country, the survival of which is dependent upon clean, clear water. Transiting cruise ships stir up silt from the seafloor and create "chronic turbidity" lethal to sea life. SRFK chair Shawn Martin hopes the exclusion of bigger ships will reduce not just the sediment plumes of silt over the reef but also pollution from human sewage, greywater and plastic waste.</p><p>"Limiting the type and size of cruise ships coming into port will lessen the stress on the ocean ecosystem and be a step in the right direction for improving water quality — a crucial element to healthy reefs," Martin told EcoWatch.</p>
<p>Local restaurant owner and opponent of the cruise ship prohibitions Bill Lay agreed on the need to protect the environment but asserted that the initiatives were the wrong way to do it.</p><p>"CSC used the cover of Covid-19 as a tool, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rid of ships," he said. "But, economically, you're taking a community devastated by the pandemic and just throwing salt on the wound. Our local businesses need foot traffic from the cruise ships."</p><p>While his two restaurants do not serve cruise passengers because they're only open for dinner, Lay predicted he and other business owners like him would feel the "domino effect" of the tightened regulations as locals whose businesses do rely on cruise traffic shutter.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.keywestchamber.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Key West Chamber of Commerce</a> similarly estimated that eliminating the cruise industry will cost the island $90 million in lost jobs and income, reported <a href="https://www.wlrn.org/2020-11-04/key-west-votes-to-limit-number-of-cruise-passengers-and-ship-size" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">WLRN</a>.</p>
<p>Haskell presented the economics differently, calling the idea that large cruise ships are essential to Key West's economy a "myth propagated by the cruise industry." While cruise ship passengers account for 50% of all visitors to Key West, they represent less than 8% of tourist spending, because most of their money is spent onboard the ship, he said.</p><p>"The meager economic benefit in Key West is simply not worth the profound risk posed by large cruise ships," he said.</p><p>"If these reefs die, so too do the industries that rely on them," Martin added. "If we do not put the health of our coral reefs first, there will be no Key West tourist economy."</p><p>"We can't afford to be shortsighted, and this move was one geared towards a strong and vibrant future for Key West," Wemett concluded.</p><p>The committee is eager to work with the cruise industry to bring qualifying small ships to Key West. Haskell asserted that a true solution would need to be about "balance" between environment and economy, with an eye on long-term economic sustainability without environmental degradation.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Leading Cruise Lines Face Lawsuits Following Handling of COVID ... ›
- Thousands of Ships Use 'Cheat Devices' to Dump Toxic Wastewater ... ›
- Environmental Report Card Grades Cruise Ships - EcoWatch ›
- Coral Rescue Team Races to Save Endangered Corals From ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
The Climate Crisis Has Already Cost the Great Barrier Reef More Than Half Its Corals
14 October 2020
Oceans
The Great Barrier Reef has lost more than 50 percent of its coral in the last 25 years. Andreas Dietzel
The Great Barrier Reef has lost more than 50 percent of its coral in the last 25 years, and the climate crisis is to blame.
<p>Researchers from the <a href="https://www.coralcoe.org.au/" target="_blank">ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies</a> (CoralCoE) made an in-depth study of how coral communities and their colony sizes had changed between 1995 and 2017 along the entire length of the reef. The results, published in the <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.1432" target="_blank">Proceedings of the Royal Society B</a> Wednesday, sound an urgent call for climate action.</p><p>"There is no time to lose — we must sharply decrease greenhouse gas emissions ASAP," the researchers <a href="https://www.coralcoe.org.au/media-releases/the-great-barrier-reef-has-lost-half-its-corals" target="_blank">said in a CoralCoE press release</a>.</p>
<p>The researchers found a decline in every size and species of coral in both shallow and deep water. The corals were especially devastated by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-2353658528.html" target="_self">back-to-back bleaching events in 2016 and 2017</a>, study author and James Cook University professor Terry Hughes told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/14/great-barrier-reef-corals-have-more-than-halved-in-past-25-years-study-shows" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>While all the corals were impacted, these bleaching events took an especially heavy toll on branching and table-shaped corals, Hughes said in the press release. This is a big deal because these architectural corals provide habitats for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fish" target="_self">fish</a>. Without them, fisheries decline.</p><p>"The reef is flatter and less three dimensional now," Hughes told The Guardian.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-bleaching" target="_self">Coral bleaching</a>, which <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/great-barrier-reef-ecological-memory-2623045702.html" target="_self">occurs</a> when hot water temperatures drive the algae that gives corals food and color from their homes, also struck the southern part of the reef at the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coral-bleaching-great-barrier-reef-2645576557.html" target="_self">beginning of 2020</a>. This event was not included in the study, so the reef may be even more depleted than the researchers calculated.</p><p>The study's findings also have implications for the reef's ability to reproduce itself.</p><p>"A vibrant coral population has millions of small, baby corals, as well as many large ones — the big mamas who produce most of the larvae," lead author of CoralCoE Dr. Andy Dietzel said in the press release. "Our results show the ability of the Great Barrier Reef to recover — its resilience — is compromised compared to the past, because there are fewer babies, and fewer large breeding adults."</p>
<p>Bob Richmond, a research professor and director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who was not involved with the study, told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/10/13/warming-has-killed-half-coral-great-barrier-reef-study-finds-it-might-never-recover/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2_x37PLr_SITwRm2VbrAgbOw3aqJPxPKbgnCZHX8kweHAe2g8Ngj6lw6Q" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> he was impressed with the work and agreed the reef was in trouble.</p><p>"If I don't see one-year-old, two-year-old, three-year-old corals, I know that reef is dead," he said. "It just doesn't know it yet."</p><p>The Great Barrier Reef stretches almost 133,000 square miles, making it the largest <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs" target="_self">coral reef</a> in the world, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/great-barrier-reef-coral-loss-intl-scli-climate-scn/index.html" target="_blank">according to CNN</a>. It provides a habitat for more than 1,500 species of fish and 411 species of hard corals.</p><p>It is also hugely important for the economy of Australia, The Washington Post pointed out. It drew more than two million tourists every year before the pandemic. Despite this, Australia continues to be the world's top <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="_self">coal</a> exporter.</p>
<p>Hughes explicitly called out Australia's pro-fossil fuel policies as a "profound policy-failure" for managing the reef on <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfTerryHughes/status/1316262459313803270" target="_blank">Twitter</a>. He said the only hope for the reef's survival was to limit global warming in line with the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement">Paris agreement</a>.</p><p>"There's not much time to lose," he told The Guardian. "I think if we can control warming somewhere between 1.5-2C [above pre-industrial levels], as per the Paris agreement, then we'll still have a reef. But if we get to 3-4C because of unrestrained emissions then we won't have a recognisable Great Barrier Reef."</p>
From Your Site Articles
- 2020 Great Barrier Reef Bleaching Event Is Most Widespread to Date ›
- Coral Reef Tipping Point: 'Near-Annual' Bleaching May Occur ... ›
- The Great Barrier Reef is on a Knife Edge ›
- Scientists Discover Massive Coral Reef Taller Than Empire State Building - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Researchers Warn of Looming Oil Spill Four Times Larger Than Exxon Valdez if Urgent Action Not Taken
17 December 2020
Oceans
A Maxar Satellite image shows the FSO Safer tanker moored in the Red Sea off Yemen on June 17, 2020. Satellite image (c) 2020 Maxar Technologies / Getty Images
By Andrea Germanos
A team of scientists issued a stark warning Tuesday that the possibility of averting an oil spill bigger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez catastrophe and "disastrous environmental and humanitarian consequences" posed by an abandoned oil tanker in the Red Sea are "quickly disappearing."
<p>At issue is the corroding <em>Safer</em>, moored off the coast of Yemen and under control of Houthi rebels since 2015.</p><p>After blocking such efforts for years, Houthi authorities last month <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/yemen-security-tanker/houthis-approve-un-technical-plan-to-assess-decaying-yemen-oil-tanker-idINL8N2IB218" target="_blank">approved</a> a United Nations plan to visit the tanker early in 2021. U.N. Environment Program executive director Inger Andersen <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/16/massive-floating-time-bomb-warnings-ecological-humanitarian-disaster-tanker-risks" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">warned</a> in July that the vessel's deteriorating condition and the over 1 million barrels of oil it holds threaten long-term damage to local ecosystems.</p><p>In a <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.615733/full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">policy brief</a> published in <em>Frontiers in Marine Science</em>, researchers said the need to pump off the oil is urgent.</p><p>"A massive leak of over 1 million barrels of oil (4 times the Exxon Valdez tanker spill) is anticipated shortly off the coast of Yemen, in the Red Sea, where the <em>Safer</em> floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) is in the final stages of decay." That quantity, they continued, "guarantees a regional environmental and humanitarian disaster," with impacts certain to affect dozens of coastal countries and the sea's rich biodiversity, including its coral reefs.</p>
<p>Given the stakes, the paper called for the U.N. International Maritime Organization and U.N Secretary-General António Guterres to "take coordinated action and achieve access to the <em>Safer</em> by all means necessary in order to pump off the oil."</p><p>That action must happen before winter, they added, pointing to models showing that "winter oil dispersion will extend further north and into the center of the Red Sea as compared to a spill dispersing during summer."</p><p>"The time is now to prevent a potential devastation to the region's waters and the livelihoods and health of millions of people living in half a dozen countries along the Red Sea's coast," lead author Karine Kleinhaus, MD, MPH, an associate professor of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University, said in a statement.</p><p>"If a spill from the Safer is allowed to occur," she continued, "the oil would spread via ocean currents to devastate a global ocean resource, as the coral reefs of the northern Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba are projected to be among the last reef ecosystems in the world to survive the coming decades."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/15/researchers-warn-looming-oil-spill-four-times-larger-exxon-valdez-if-urgent-action?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Mysterious Oil Spill on Massachusetts' Charles River Spurs Major ... ›
- 20,000 Ton Oil Spill in Russian Arctic Has 'Catastrophic ... ›
- Mauritius' First Major Oil Spill Poses Environmental Crisis - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Researchers have discovered at least 12 new deep-sea species in the Atlantic Ocean. cosmin4000 / Getty Images
At least twelve deep-sea species were recently discovered in the Atlantic, BBC News reported. After five years of research, scientists of the ATLAS Project, a transatlantic assessment and deep-water management plan for Europe, discovered new species of sea mosses, molluscs and corals.
<p>Although much of the deep sea remains unexplored, researchers warn that the impacts of climate change, like ocean acidification, could threaten deep-sea species and their habitats.</p>
<p>"We can still say we have better maps of the surface of the Moon and Mars than of the sea floor," Professor George Wolff, an ocean chemist from the University of Liverpool, told BBC News. "So whenever you go to the deep ocean, you find something new — not just individual species but entire ecosystems."</p>
<p>Professor Murray Roberts from the University of Edinburgh described the importance of deep-sea communities, such as those created by corals and sponges.</p>
<p>"If those cities are damaged by destructive human uses, those fish have nowhere to spawn and the function of those whole ecosystems is lost for future generations," Roberts told BBC News. "It's like understanding that the rainforest is an important place for biodiversity on the land; the same is true of the deep sea — there are important places that need to be protected and, crucially, they are all connected."</p>
<p>Protecting these places, however, could become increasingly difficult. The ATLAS researchers also found that ocean acidification, caused by an increase in carbon dioxide, reduces deep-sea habitats, BBC News reported. </p>
<p>Over the past two centuries, the ocean has absorbed nearly one-third of all emissions, according to <a href="https://oceanfdn.org/ocean-acidification/" target="_blank">research by The Ocean Foundation</a>. This has led the ocean's surface to acidify at an increasing rate.</p><p>"The ocean plays a fundamental role in mitigating climate change by serving as a major heat and carbon sink," <a href="https://oceanfdn.org/ocean-and-climate-change/#:~:text=The%20ocean%20plays%20a%20fundamental,major%20heat%20and%20carbon%20sink.&text=Ocean%20waters%2C%20ocean%20animals%2C%20and,dioxide%20emissions%20from%20human%20activities." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Ocean Foundation wrote on its site</a>. "The ocean also bears the brunt of climate change, as evidenced by changes in temperature, currents and sea level rise, all of which affect the health of marine species, nearshore and deep ocean ecosystems."</p><p>In their research, the ATLAS team found nearly 50 percent of the cold-water coral habitats were at risk of ocean acidification, the <a href="https://www.ibtimes.com/12-new-species-found-deep-atlantic-climate-change-threatens-their-existence-3111189" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">International Business Times reported</a>. They also found that ocean acidification and fisheries threaten nearly 19 percent of deep-sea ecosystems. </p><p>Deep-sea corals are among those threatened, as they are growing more brittle as the ocean becomes more acidic, a<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.00668/full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> recent study published by Frontiers in Marine Science</a> found. </p>
<p>The Marine Science study sampled live corals and compared them to weakened human skeletons that suffered from osteoporosis. The results found that crumbling corals weakened similarly to human bones, according to <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200917105321.htm" target="_blank">Science Daily</a>.</p><p>"By being able to adapt strategies to coral reefs that are used routinely to monitor osteoporosis and assess bone fracture risk, we may have powerful non-invasive tools at our disposal to monitor these fragile ecosystems," Dr. Uwe Wolfram of Heriot-Watt University told Science Daily. </p><p>The push to understand deep-sea ecosystems coincides with the beginning of the <a href="https://www.oceandecade.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development</a>, set to begin in 2021. </p><p>In 2017, the United Nations announced an upcoming framework to ensure the protection and sustainable use of the ocean. Running until 2030, the program aims to mobilize communities to deepen their scientific understanding of the ocean and form science-based policies and mitigation strategies. </p><p>"The deep ocean can be so out of sight and out of mind that we're not really aware of what we're doing to its environments and the consequences of what we do," Professor Claire Armstrong, a natural resource economist from the University of Tromsø, told BBC News. "The value of all this knowledge is that it enables us to understand what we might risk losing." </p>
From Your Site Articles
- More Microplastics in Deep Sea Than Great Pacific Garbage Patch ... ›
- Race to Mine Deep Seabeds, With Unknown Ecological Impacts ... ›
- Ocean Warming Is Causing Deep-Sea Creatures to Migrate Toward ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Trending
Ocean Warming Threatens Coral Reefs and Soon Could Make It Harder to Restore Them
09 August 2020
Oceans
Pexels
By Shawna Foo
Anyone who's tending a garden right now knows what extreme heat can do to plants. Heat is also a concern for an important form of underwater gardening: growing corals and "outplanting," or transplanting them to restore damaged reefs.
<p>
The goal of outplanting is to aid coral reefs' natural recovery process by growing new corals and moving them to the damaged areas. It's the same idea as replanting <a href="https://theconversation.com/high-value-opportunities-exist-to-restore-tropical-rainforests-around-the-world-heres-how-we-mapped-them-119508" target="_blank">forests that have been heavily logged</a>, or depleted farm fields that <a href="https://theconversation.com/rain-plays-a-surprising-role-in-making-some-restored-prairies-healthier-than-others-133892" target="_blank">once were prairie grasslands</a>.
</p><p>
I have studied how global stressors such as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BX92RvYAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">ocean warming and acidification</a> affect marine invertebrates for more than a decade. In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7dfa" target="_blank">recently published study</a>, I worked with <a href="https://sustainability.asu.edu/person/gregory-asner/" target="_blank">Gregory Asner</a> to analyze the impacts of temperature on coral reef restoration projects. Our results showed that climate change has raised sea surface temperatures close to a point that will make it very hard for outplanted corals to survive.
</p>
<script async="async" data-counter="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142876/count?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" id="theconversation_tracker_hook" src="https://theconversation.com/javascripts/lib/content_tracker_hook.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
Coral Gardening
<p>Coral reefs <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/marine-life/coral-reef-ecosystems" target="_blank">support over 25% of marine life</a> by providing food, shelter and a place for fish and other organisms to reproduce and raise young. Today, <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-ocean-heat-content" target="_blank">ocean warming driven by climate change</a> is stressing reefs worldwide.</p><p>Rising ocean temperatures cause <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coralreef-climate.html#:%7E:text=Climate%20change%20leads%20to%3A,to%20the%20smothering%20of%20coral." target="_blank">bleaching events</a> – episodes in which corals expel the algae that live inside them and provide the corals with most of their food, as well as their vibrant colors. When corals lose their algae, they become less resistant to stressors such as disease and eventually may die.</p><p>Hundreds of organizations worldwide are working to restore damaged coral reefs by growing thousands of small coral fragments in nurseries, which may be onshore in laboratories or in the ocean near degraded reefs. Then scuba divers physically plant them at restoration sites.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b225326fed0fdb9562f44aa4df298c95"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1N3HNMRd56w?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Outplanting coral is expensive: According to one recent study, the median cost is about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.12977" target="_blank">US$160,000 per acre, or $400,000 per hectare</a>. It also is time-consuming, with scuba divers placing each outplanted coral by hand. So it's important to maximize coral survival by choosing the best locations.</p><p>We used data from the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration's <a href="https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/index.php" target="_blank">Coral Reef Watch program</a>, which collects daily satellite-derived measurements of sea surface temperature. We paired this information with survival rates from hundreds of coral outplanting projects worldwide.</p><p>We found that coral survival was likely to drop below 50% if the maximum temperature experienced at the restoration site exceeded 86.9 degrees Fahrenheit (30.5 degrees Celsius). This temperature threshold mirrors the tolerance of natural coral reefs.</p><p>Globally, coral reefs experience an annual maximum temperature today of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2012JC008199" target="_blank">84.9˚F (29.4˚C)</a>. This means they already are living close to their upper thermal limit.</p><p>When reefs experience temperatures only a few degrees above long-term averages for a few weeks, the stress can cause <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19475683.2011.576266" target="_blank">coral bleaching and mortality</a>. Increases of just a few degrees above normal caused <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-just-spent-two-weeks-surveying-the-great-barrier-reef-what-we-saw-was-an-utter-tragedy-135197" target="_blank">three mass bleaching events</a> since 2016 that have devastated Australia's Great Barrier Reef.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU0NzU3OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMDU2MzE3NH0.NlwoEY9YiJ0HPi92GsRMMgQIYbC6fiYFfoaqBfpwy3U/img.png?width=980" id="d463d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="01778f87ae7aa647f90d74a14d7146c0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1000" data-height="545" />
Sea surface temperatures on Aug. 3, 2020, measured from satellites. Warning = possible bleaching; Alert Level 1 = significant bleaching likely; Alert Level 2 = severe bleaching and significant mortality likely. NOAA Coral Reef Watch
Warmer Oceans
<p>Climate scientists project that the oceans will <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/ar5_wgII_spm_en-1.pdf" target="_blank">warm up to 3˚C</a> by the year 2100. Scientists are working to create coral outplants that can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721415116" target="_blank">better survive increases in temperature</a>, which could help to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1978" target="_blank">increase restoration success</a> in the future.</p><p>When coral restoration experts choose where to outplant, they typically consider what's on the seafloor, algae that could smother coral, predators that eat coral and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1792" target="_blank">presence of fish</a>. Our study shows that using temperature data and other information collected remotely from airplanes and satellites could help to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00079" target="_blank">optimize this process</a>. Remote sensing, which scientists have used to study coral reefs for almost 40 years, can provide information on much larger scales than water surveys.</p><p>Coral reefs face an uncertain future and may not recover naturally from human-caused climate change. Conserving them will require reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting key habitats and actively restoring reefs. I hope that our research on temperature will help increase coral outplant survival and restoration success.</p><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shawna-foo-1136932" target="_blank">Shawna Foo</a> is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Arizona State University. </em></p><p><em>Disclosure statement: Shawna Foo receives funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/ocean-warming-threatens-coral-reefs-and-soon-could-make-it-harder-to-restore-them-142876" target="_blank" style="">The Conversation</a>.</em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Coral Reefs Could Be Completely Lost to the Climate Crisis by 2100 ... ›
- Coral Reefs Are Still Growing Atolls Despite Sea Level Rise - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Scientists at the Australian Institute of Marine Science are engineering heat-resistant corals. Jonas Gratzer / Mongabay
By Johan Augustin
In a lab on Australia's east coast, scientists are concocting what they hope will be the solution to the steadily worsening problem of coral bleaching.
<p>Few people understand the Great Barrier Reef, and the challenges it faces, better than the scientists at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). And events of the past few years have them concerned about how well it can cope with rising water temperatures that have increased the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/reef-bleaching-five-times-more-frequent-now-than-in-the-1980s-study-finds/" target="_blank">frequency</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/04/06/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching/" target="_blank">severity</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/world/australia/great-barrier-reefs-bleaching-dying.html" target="_blank">extent</a> of coral-bleaching events.</p><p>As water temperatures rise, the coral polyps flush out the photosynthetic algae that live in their tissue and give them their color. The corals depend on the algae for their energy, and without these symbionts, the newly bare, or "bleached," reefs slowly start to die.</p><p>Historically, bleaching events have occurred far enough apart in time that reefs have been able to recover, typically within about a decade. But in March this year, the Great Barrier Reef suffered its third <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/great-barrier-reef-suffers-biggest-bleaching-event-yet/" target="_blank">major bleaching event</a> in just five years.</p><p>"Three major widespread mass bleaching events throughout the Great Barrier Reef are clear indicators that ocean warming is happening faster than expected and the severity of the warming events is pushing corals beyond levels that these reefs can sustain," says Neal Cantin, a coral reef biologist at the AIMS.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMDUxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTc5NTg3M30.8HWZCyAHlLzByK_5G-SdZvJsUteDk6kw_oVuOyA_Dkg/img.jpg?width=980" id="c18d4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6b4668c3cc408cd0ea3e87af0beb870f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1200" data-height="800" />
A branch of bleached coral. Jonas Gratzer / Mongabay
‘Remarkable Resiliency’
<p>Water temperatures this time around didn't reach as high as during the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/03/climate-change-induced-bleaching-decimating-great-barrier-reef/" target="_blank">2016 event</a>, but the bleaching was worse for two key reasons, Cantin says.</p><p>"The first is how soon it follows the 2016 and 2017 back-to-back bleaching events. The second concern is the footprint of heat in 2020," he says.</p><p>That "footprint" refers to the total extent of reef affected by bleaching. While the 2016 event had the most extreme levels of heat, Cantin says, it was limited mostly to the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef, severely bleaching 35% of the total reef area. This time around, the entire length of the reef — a span of 2,300 kilometers (1,300 miles) — was exposed to heat stress "capable of causing bleaching." That resulted in severe levels of bleaching on an additional 25% of the reefs, Cantin says.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMDUzOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTk5NzQxOH0.ZmUkJz3x1bsXmrwXBMKQ-VAFTrI8pbc4lG9R6GbLGmY/img.jpg?width=980" id="63720" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="531cdf1c8901036f10b2a06f846e65d5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1200" data-height="800" />
Bleached coral on the Great Barrier Reef. Jonas Gratzer / Mongabay
<p>But brewing in the AIMS lab are pioneering experiments aimed at finding <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/05/models-maps-and-citizen-scientists-working-to-save-the-great-barrier-reef/" target="_blank">scientific breakthroughs</a> for a problem that experts agree is <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/05/new-map-shows-warming-waters-where-coral-reefs-could-be-under-threat/" target="_blank">bound to get worse</a> over time. And they've already come up with a strong candidate for the answer to the bleaching problem: corals engineered to take the heat. In a method known as assisted gene flow — similar to how food crops are crossbred to emphasize favorable traits — scientists here single out the genetic properties that make certain coral species more resistant to heat, and find ways to pass it on.</p><p>These hybrids have already "demonstrated remarkable resiliency" to high water temperatures at the juvenile life stage inside the AIMS National Sea Simulator, says reef restoration scientist Kate Quigley. Her team also works with enhancing the symbiont algae.</p><p>"By pairing these enhanced corals with enhanced symbionts, we have been able to increase their heat resistance up to 26 times," Quigley says, pointing to a <a href="https://bio.biologists.org/content/9/1/bio047316" target="_blank">recently published study</a> with those findings. The researchers have also found that breeding these enhanced corals <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mec.15482" target="_blank">creates new genetic diversity</a> in key traits associated with resisting higher water temperatures.</p><p>"The early results we have found in regards to enhancing corals' heat tolerance are encouraging," Quigley says. "I would describe these early experiments as successes."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMDU0My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MzY4NTQ1OX0.Ewr_3ToVZ8LuJBQPE_nFEMt-G3h01Z2Xsdv13F85gDI/img.jpg?width=980" id="f2a1b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6fcfdaecd61d63211491732290baabbe" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1200" data-height="800" />
A tank of enhanced coral at the AIMS center being tested for their warm-water tolerance. Jonas Gratzer / Mongabay
Large-Scale Deployment
<p>The hybrids have one parent from northern, warmer, parts of the reef and one from the central, cooler, part. The results show that some of the strains have inherited the northern corals' temperature tolerance and can survive when placed in cooler environments. That suggests that over time, as these cooler regions heat up, these corals will be able to tolerate the rising temperatures better than the native corals.</p><p>"We have learned key fundamental biology about coral reproduction and heat tolerance that will be important moving forward in further developing new, scalable coral restoration methods," Quigley says. "We are [also] finding that heat tolerance can be passed from parents to offspring in reproducible, persistent ways."</p><p>These research projects fall under the wider Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program, which Cantin calls "the biggest single effort anywhere in the world to develop options for intervening on the reef to help it adapt and cope better with climate change."</p><p>"These interventions are promising," Cantin adds, "but none are ready to deploy large-scale."<span></span></p><p>For the enhanced corals to have any meaningful effect across a reef that stretches the same distance as New York City to Miami, they will need to be deployed in massive volumes. Another experiment at the AIMS, the Larval Restoration Project, is looking into how to do this, but with naturally occurring warm-adapted corals rather than the gene-edited ones from the AIMS lab. It's the largest coral reseeding project in history, launched in 2016 and funded by the Australian government.</p><p>The idea is that during the annual mass coral spawning, which takes place every year during the November full moon, researchers harvest millions of coral eggs and sperm. They then grow them in enclosures on the reef to produce coral larvae, which are later released onto bleached and damaged sections of the reef to repopulate them.</p><p>The coral species that spawn this year will be the ones that survived the bleaching in March, and therefore those with proven better heat tolerance. The harvest this time around "will allow us to find reefs, populations and individuals that are particularly hardy and that will act as breeding stock for the production of coral offspring able to withstand high heat," Quigley says.</p><p>"The search for hardy and resilient corals continues, but we have already seen some very promising results," she adds.</p>From Your Site Articles
- Coral Reef Tipping Point: 'Near-Annual' Bleaching May Occur ... ›
- Great Barrier Reef Has Third Major Bleaching Event in Five Years ... ›
- Severe Coral Reef Bleaching Now 'Five Times More Frequent' Than ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Trending
Coral Reef Outplants: Sea Temperature an Often Overlooked but Vital Factor in Success, Scientists Find
20 July 2020
Climate
Divers tend to coral outplants anchored to an underwater structure. NOAA
By Elizabeth Claire Alberts
Coral reefs are often called the "rainforests of the sea" because they harbor some of the highest levels of biodiversity of any ecosystem in the world. But as sea temperatures rise, coral reef systems are suffering mass bleaching events, leading to widespread mortality. One way to try and restore coral reef systems is coral reef gardening or "outplanting," a method of growing coral fragments in a nursery and transferring them to ailing reef systems. But like naturally grown coral, it's hard to keep outplants alive, especially with climate change steadily raising global sea temperatures.
<p><br/></p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ4Mjg0Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNTQwOTI1OX0.wN891YE0ecL637AQ99QGRD538bNGkm8EUCG1W5tTziE/img.jpg?width=980" id="2bb4f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d6ece956576c5bba8a88c64d7aeed1f6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="768" data-height="512" />
A coral nursery loaded with detached corals in Hawai'i off the coast of O'ahu. NOAA Fisheries
<p>A new study, published this month in <em><a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7dfa" target="_blank">Environmental Research Letters</a></em>, shows that coral reef outplant survival dropped below 50% when temperatures rose above 30.5° Celsius (86.9° Fahrenheit).</p><p>"In normal coral reefs, an increase of one degree [Celsius, or 1.9°F] can cause bleaching and death," Shawna Foo, lead author and postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University's Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science (GDCS), told Mongabay. "But it was not actually known what temperatures were important for coral outplants to survive, maybe because they've been grown in different conditions, or maybe [it was thought that] they could be less resilient to temperature or more resilient to temperature."</p><p>Foo and her co-author, Greg Asner, director of GDCS, analyzed hundreds of coral outplanting projects that took place around the world between 1987 and 2018 to collect data on coral survival rates and outplant locations and dates. They also gathered data on global sea surface temperature, obtained from <a href="https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/index.php" target="_blank">NOAA's Coral Reef Watch program</a>. What they eventually found was that coral outplants reacted to temperature the same way as natural coral reefs.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ4Mjg1MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2ODAzOTkyMX0.3G0VESRqSt7yvcT7033yotPYLvDengQAgygctH_tQ4I/img.jpg?width=980" id="4a25f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="02c2d97b42b75cc7dee8346fba7d7d6f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="768" data-height="576" />
A Staghorn coral nursery in Puerto Rico. NOAA
<p>Growing coral is an extremely labor-intensive activity that can <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/rec.12977" target="_blank">cost</a> up to $400,000 per hectare. Sites for coral reef outplanting tend to be chosen based on water clarity, a suitable seafloor environment, and the presence of an existing coral reef. But temperature isn't always considered, Foo said. While many factors can lead to the demise of coral outplants, including algae outbreaks and unfavorable water chemistry, temperature plays a key role in outplant health and survival, according to the study.</p><p>Another key finding is that outplant survival increased at sites with more temperature variability, rather than at sites that remained at a constant temperature night and day.</p><p>"We find that corals that are in these more variable conditions actually have higher survival, and this is probably because exposure to variability is increasing the resilience to temperature change, and … being exposed to low temperatures means they actually have a little bit of reprieve as well," Foo said.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ4Mjg1OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTQ4MzE2MX0.3sMkVCaoewnQzHu0D0i5GheZHkJVmznuhTOVB1Q9FDg/img.png?width=980" id="8083c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6f1a4122e45274860b597212832c6a36" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1926" data-height="896" />
Scientists maintaining corals growing in a coral reef nursery. NOAA
<p>Foo says she hopes this study will help coral outplant practitioners choose the best sites for coral gardens to boost survival. Temperature is becoming an increasingly important consideration, especially as ocean warming is expected to <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/01/ocean-warming-projected-to-accelerate-more-than-four-fold-over-next-60-years-study/#:~:text=published%20in%202013.-,The%20oceans%20will%20warm%20at%20an%20even%20more%20rapid%20pace,60%20years%2C%E2%80%9D%20Cheng%20said." target="_blank">accelerate more than four-fold </a>over the next 60 years.</p><p>"Although sobering for reef conservationists and managers, our findings provide a critical compass as to where reef restoration efforts can have their greatest impact in the future," Asner said in a statement. "Reef restoration is just now turning from a cottage industry to a global enterprise, and this needs to happen in concert with the changing global geography of ocean temperature."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/sea-temperature-a-critical-factor-in-success-of-coral-reef-outplants/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Coral Reefs Could Be Completely Lost to the Climate Crisis by 2100 ... ›
- Great Barrier Reef Authority Warns That Climate Action Is Needed ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
A new study finds plastic pollution increases ocean acidification. Placebo365 / Getty Images
A new study finds that plastic water bottles submerged three weeks at sea contained more detrimental bacteria than seawater, creating conditions that lead to ocean acidification.
<p>In the <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201106093018.htm" target="_blank">study</a>, published last week in the journal <em>Marine Pollution Bulletin</em>, international scientists concluded that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" target="_blank">plastic pollution,</a> particularly single-use plastic water bottles, collected harmful bacteria and microorganisms, which flourish in carbon dioxide-rich environments. </p><p>Increased levels of CO2 in the world's oceans are one of the causes of<a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/blog/6119/what-is-coral-what-are-the-causes-impacts-and-solutions-of-coral-bleaching/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> coral bleaching</a>, and rising carbon levels have accelerated the climate crisis. The Great Barrier Reef, the largest system of corals in the world, is now <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/travel/2020/10/14/great-barrier-reef-coral-died-travel-orig-ch.cnn/video/playlists/travel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">50 percent bleached</a>. </p><p>The study also found that beneficial bacteria, an important part of the <a href="https://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/156/fast-carbon-cycle/" target="_blank">carbon cycle</a>, were adversely affected.</p>
<p>"Discarded plastic drinking bottles have become a common sight in our oceans and we were expecting to see them being colonized by different types of bacteria," said Dr. Ben Harvey, assistant professor at the University of Tsukuba's Shimoda Marine Research Center, and an author of the study.</p><p>As part of the experiment, the plastic bottles were immersed near Shikine, a Japanese island close to carbon dioxide seeps, where CO2 evaporates into the seawater. This condition is expected to materialize more in subsequent years. </p><p>"It was surprising to see the extent of that change and how the raised levels affected species differently. To see beneficial species dwindling while harmful species thrive is an obvious present and future cause for concern," said Harvey. </p>
<p>In addition to coral bleaching, ocean acidification is often a driver in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_blank">biodiversity</a> loss, with <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ocean-acidification/effects-ocean-and-coastal-acidification-ecosystems" target="_blank">disrupted food webs</a> threatening species.</p><p>"Up to 13 million tons of plastics from land end up in the oceans each year and they have been shown to affect all types and sizes of marine species," said senior author of the study Jason Hall-Spencer, a professor of marine biology at the University of Plymouth.</p><p>Without coral reefs, starfish, sea urchin and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-turtles" target="_self">sea turtle</a> populations shrink, for example. Plus, acidification can cause sharks' scales and teeth to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ocean-acidification-could-eat-away-at-sharks-teeth-and-scales/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">erode</a>. And deep-sea life such as whales and rays face less prey to find.</p><p>Hall-Spencer, however, remains hopeful.<br></p><p>"It is... within our power to change cultures so that litter created on land does not become an environmental hazard in our oceans, both now and for future generations."</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Ocean Acidification Threatens Entire Ecosystems - EcoWatch ›
- Dungeness Crabs' Shells Are Dissolving From the Severity of Pacific ... ›
- Ocean Acidification from Climate Change Could Cost $1 Trillion ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Non-profit organization Global Coralition draws on art, science and local communities for its coral reef restoration work. youtu.be
By David Elliott
Dive beneath the brilliant blue waters surrounding Thailand's Koh Tao island and you might come face to face with a giant sculpture of the sea goddess Mazu.
But a closer look reveals an even bigger surprise – Mazu is alive.
<p>That's because, as the 1,800kg (almost 40,000-pound) centerpiece of a large artificial coral reef, she is teeming with sea life.</p><p>Built in 2018 by non-profit organization Global Coralition with the <a href="https://oceanic.global/the-art-rising/" target="_blank">help of conservation group Eco Koh Tao</a>, the sculpture and the 36 smaller pyramid structures that surround it hold <a href="https://www.globalcoralition.org/projects/koh-tao" target="_blank">5,000 coral transplants</a>. It attracts hundreds of divers a week and helps raise funds for local restoration groups, and is maintained by these divers and the local community.</p><p>Global Coralition now plans to return to the island to work with local conservation groups and scientists from Thailand's marine resources department to build the island's first land-based coral farm. The group is currently raising funds.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8f055bac39f517e94abf83f7fe746959"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J1b1SPUOnyA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
Small Pieces, Big Impact
<p>Angeline Chen, Executive Director of Global Coralition – who spoke recently at the World Economic Forum's <a href="https://www.weforum.org/events/virtual-ocean-dialogues-2020/sessions/uplink-ocean-solutions-sprint" target="_blank">Virtual Ocean Dialogues</a> event – is effusive about the benefits of growing coral on land and the role it could play in rebuilding damaged ocean habitats.</p><p>Coral can be grown up to 50 times faster this way, she says, using a technique called <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857418303094" target="_blank">microfragmentation</a>. This involves dividing a piece of coral into much smaller fragments, which<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287204400_The_cultivation_of_massive_corals_using_micro-fragmentation_for_the_reskinning_of_degraded_coral_reefs" target="_blank"> stimulates the tissue</a> to grow. The pieces are grown a short distance apart and – because<a href="https://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=saving-coral" target="_blank"> corals are clonal animals</a> – they fuse together when their edges meet, forming a single mass.</p><p>Combined with other scientific methods, like<a href="https://www.globalcoralition.org/our-approach" target="_blank"> larval propagation and assisted evolution</a> to increase the resilience and reproductive rate of corals, Chen believes the impact of such projects, practiced all around the world, could be massive.</p><p>"With these farms, we could be growing a diverse array of resilient coral on a huge scale," she says.</p><p>Many organizations are practicing these methods, including <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857418303094" target="_blank">Mote Marine Laboratory</a> in Florida, US, and the government of Hawaii, which is out-planting 1 meter by 1 meter (3.2 foot) corals grown in one year – the <a href="https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/blog/2020/05/28/nr20-072/" target="_blank">largest to be grown in a land-based</a> nursery.</p><div id="507c8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e2c57fd8c727e7692e37866d6fc81164"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1266170721882890240" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">In the world of nursery raised corals, a one-meter coral is considered big. Yesterday, a team of biologists and te… https://t.co/wNWMyaARVf</div> — DLNR (@DLNR)<a href="https://twitter.com/dlnr/statuses/1266170721882890240">1590713599.0</a></blockquote></div>
Empowering Communities
<p>Driving the work of Global Coralition and organizations like it is a simple fact: coral is vital to the planet.</p><p>Coral reefs are among the <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_corals/welcome.html" target="_blank">most diverse ecosystems</a> on Earth, and they support nearly<a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Coral" target="_blank"> 1 million species of fish</a>, invertebrates and algae. They're crucial to humans, too. They<a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_protect.html#:~:text=Coral%20reefs%20provide%20a%20buffer,%2C%20property%20damage%2C%20and%20erosion." target="_blank"> protect our coasts from storms</a> and floods, and<a href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu/projects/coralreefsystems/about-coral-reefs/value-of-corals/" target="_blank"> provide work, medicine and food</a> to more than 1 billion people. In fact, coral <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/coral-reefs-we-continue-take-more-we-give#:~:text=Coral%20reef%20ecosystems%20provide%20society,the%20tourism%20and%20fisheries%20industries." target="_blank">reef ecosystems give society resources</a> and services worth $375 billion per year, according to the United Nations.</p><p>But coral faces myriad threats, including overfishing, pollution and climate change. Almost <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/17126/reef-building-corals-under-threat/" target="_blank">half of reef-building coral species are under threat</a>, according to UN figures. And scientists predict we'll lose up to <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-02-acidic-oceans-coral-reef-habitats.html" target="_blank">90% of all reefs</a> in the next 20 years if something isn't done soon.</p><p>For Chen and the Global Coralition, the answer lies in engaging and empowering local communities with the knowledge, tools and resources to reduce the local impacts of reef degradation while increasing key habitats and species.</p><p>The organization uses art, like the sculpture of Mazu, to bring people together around cultural themes that are <a href="https://www.globalcoralition.org/our-approach" target="_blank">meaningful to their communities</a>.</p><p>It then works with parties including local officials, marine ecologists, fisherman, students and dive centers to foster the unique skills to rehabilitate their local ecology. This work in turn improves quality of life, water quality, food security, income and employment opportunities and education in the region.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNzg0My9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTAxNTU4MX0.qvqASgEfINGbVu5_go4_Si0Co-M0EpPYnGX86s1VpJQ/img.gif?width=980" id="cb0f0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f63e56eecee01b4b439631e10261f3cf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="960" data-height="684" />
The world's reef-building corals. Statista
Global Effort
<p>Global Coralition is currently building a marine farm in a fishing village in the Dominican Republic. It consists of an expansive underwater sculpture garden inspired by Taino wisdom, a land-based coral farm, mangrove and oyster restoration and a community education center.</p><p>As part of this project, Chen says, it used the World Economic Forum's <a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-contribution/a012o00001G7i5TAAR/global-coralition" target="_blank">UpLink</a> platform to connect the community with a recycling facility that pays locals to collect trash, which can be turned into material to be sold back into the economy.</p><p>The organization wants to create <a href="https://www.weforum.org/events/virtual-ocean-dialogues-2020/sessions/uplink-ocean-solutions-sprint" target="_blank">200 of these marine hubs</a> across the globe in collaboration with local communities and governments, fishing villages, dive communities, restoration groups, hotels and local officials.</p><p>"Based on recovery rates, scientists predict we can rebuild marine life by 2050 if we can mitigate climate change, reduce local pressures and increase the abundance of our keystone habitats and species," Chen says.</p><p>"If these methods were applied all over the world, we could scale our collective rates of restoration."</p>
Read More
Show Less