All posts tagged: Coral

An Army of Sea Urchins Could Help Save Coral Reefs

An Army of Sea Urchins Could Help Save Coral Reefs

Published by skeptic

This article was originally published by Hakai Magazine. South of Tampa Bay, in Florida, wedged between a quiet neighborhood and a mangrove forest, custom-designed aquariums are home to thousands of sea-urchin larvae that tumble and drift through the water. Scientists with the Florida Aquarium and the University of Florida care for the little urchins, checking them daily under microscopes for signs that they’re maturing into juveniles, which look like miniature versions of the adults. Few will make it. For every 1 million embryos conceived in the lab, only about 100,000 become larvae. Of those, only up to 2,000 become adults. And at this particular moment, coral reefs in the Caribbean need all the urchins they can get. Long-spined sea urchins (Diadema antillarum) play a vital role in Caribbean coral ecosystems. Whereas overpopulated urchins elsewhere are treated as villains—in California, for instance, divers smash purple urchins with hammers to keep them from mowing down kelp forests—Diadema are the Caribbean’s unsung heroes. Dark and rotund, with spines radiating in all directions, some as long as knitting needles, …

Saving coral reefs: how a university is making waves worldwide | Future Focused: the University of Derby Seminar Series

Saving coral reefs: how a university is making waves worldwide | Future Focused: the University of Derby Seminar Series

Published by skeptic

The University of Derby is a world leader in coral research, helping to develop a pioneering breeding programme that could safeguard the world’s precious reefs. The university prides itself on carrying out research that can be applied to real-world situations and which is helping to tackle global environmental challenges. Although Derby is about as far from the sea as you can get in the UK, the city’s university is a powerhouse of marine science. Its groundbreaking research, innovative collaborations and host of international networks have helped to produce some of the world’s leading marine scientists, especially in the study of coral. Prof Michael SweetProfessor of molecular ecology at the University of Derby A world authority on coral, the professor manages the university’s aquatic research facility and heads the Nature-based Solutions Research Centre. He is co-founder of the Coral Spawning Lab and works with the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the United Nations to transfer science to policy. Dr Jamie CraggsPrincipal aquarium curator and living collections manager at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in …

Corals that recover from bleaching still struggle to breed

Corals that recover from bleaching still struggle to breed

Published by skeptic

A marine biologist inspects bleached coral around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef DAVID GRAY/AFP via Getty Images Although coral reefs can recover from bleaching, those subjected to heat stress have a lower reproductive output, researchers have found. This means reefs may take longer to bounce back than previously assumed and are more vulnerable to future stressors. Bleaching occurs when corals exposed to above-average ocean temperatures expel the symbiotic algae that live inside their tissues. These organisms give them their vibrant colours as well as providing most of their food via photosynthesis. Bleached coral remains… Source link

Great Barrier Reef’s worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard: ‘It looks as if it has been carpet bombed’ | Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef’s worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard: ‘It looks as if it has been carpet bombed’ | Great Barrier Reef

Published by skeptic

Beneath the turquoise waters off Heron Island lies a huge, brain-shaped Porites coral that, in health, would be a rude shade of purplish-brown. Today that coral outcrop, or bommie, shines snow white. Prof Terry Hughes, a coral bleaching expert at James Cook University, estimates this living boulder is at least 300 years old. “If that thing had eyes it could have looked up and watched Captain Cook sail past,” he says, back on the pristine beach of this speck of an island 80km offshore at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. It is not just Heron’s grand old bommie that is freshly bleached. The surrounding tangle of staghorn corals, or Acropora, are splashed in swathes of white, or painted a dappled mosaic of greens and browns that betray the algae and seaweeds growing over the freshly killed coral. Hughes estimates 90% of those branching corals are dead or dying. Terry Hughes inspects the coral around the Heron Island research station Snorkelling above these blighted coral thickets evokes the imagery of forests annihilated by …

Culling predatory starfish conserves coral on the Great Barrier Reef

Culling predatory starfish conserves coral on the Great Barrier Reef

Published by skeptic

A diver injecting vinegar into a crown-of-thorns starfish as part of the culling programme CSIRO A culling programme has succeeded in protecting key areas of the Great Barrier Reef from voracious coral-eating starfish. Scientists who analysed the outcome say the effort should be expanded to conserve more of the reef. Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) are relentless feeders on nearly all species of coral within Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Each starfish can reach 1 metre in diameter and eat 10 square metres of coral reef each year. The starfish are native to the reef, but it is thought increasing nutrients pouring into the reef’s waters from agriculture and other human factors have increased their numbers and worsened the destruction of corals. Between 1985 and 2012, they accounted for 40 per cent of the region’s coral loss. During a major reef-wide eruption of the starfish between 2012 and 2022, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority carried out a large-scale culling programme. Teams of divers inject the starfish with a single shot of either vinegar or ox bile, …

Scientists’ experiment is ‘beacon of hope’ for coral reefs on brink of global collapse | Coral

Scientists’ experiment is ‘beacon of hope’ for coral reefs on brink of global collapse | Coral

Published by skeptic

An underwater experiment to restore coral reefs using a combination of “coral IVF” and recordings of fish noises could offer a “beacon of hope” to scientists who fear the fragile ecosystem is on the brink of collapse. The experiment – a global collaboration between two teams of scientists who developed their innovative coral-saving techniques independently – has the potential to significantly increase the likelihood that coral will repopulate degraded reefs, they claim. The first use of the combined techniques, to repair damaged atolls in the Maldives, will be shown on the BBC One TV series Our Changing Planet, co-presented by the naturalist Steve Backshall.Hailed as a potential “gamechanger”, the hope is that the technique could be replicated on a large scale to help preserve and revitalise dying reefs. “All corals in all ocean basins in the world are under pressure,” said Prof Peter Harrison, a coral ecologist at Southern Cross University in Australia. “Quite a large number have died in some reef areas. So we’re going to end up with big spaces of new real …

Most of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering from coral bleaching

Most of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering from coral bleaching

Published by skeptic

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is experiencing one of its worst bleaching events since monitoring began nearly four decades ago, authorities say, with much of the famed reef showing signs of damage as warming ocean temperatures blight reefs worldwide. Bleaching occurs when heat-stressed coral turn white after expelling symbiotic algae that provide food and color. It’s a result of abnormal ocean temperatures in the past year that scientists worry could represent a major change to Earth systems. In the Great Barrier Reef marine park, 73 percent of the reefs surveyed have prevalent bleaching — which means that more than 10 percent of the coral cover is bleached, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which manages the area, said Wednesday. Very high and extreme bleaching was observed across nearly 40 percent of the reef system. “Climate change is the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef, and coral reefs globally,” said Roger Beeden, the authority’s chief scientist. “The Great Barrier Reef is an incredible ecosystem, and while it has shown its resilience time and time again, …

Mayorkas impeachment trial; coral reef mass bleaching

Mayorkas impeachment trial; coral reef mass bleaching

Published by skeptic

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day. Today’s top news The Democratic-led Senate will kick off the impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas today. He’s only the second Cabinet secretary to be impeached in U.S. history. Mayorkas is accused of allegedly failing to enforce immigration laws. Many Democrats have called for a motion to dismiss the trial. Senators could reach an agreement to debate the articles of impeachment tomorrow. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached in roughly 150 years. As House Republicans targeted him he was involved in Senate negotiations on a bipartisan bill to change administration border policies. Go Nakamura/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Go Nakamura/Getty Images Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached in roughly 150 years. As House Republicans targeted him he was involved in …

To help coral reefs survive bleaching, scientists speed evolution

To help coral reefs survive bleaching, scientists speed evolution

Published by skeptic

Record levels of heat in the ocean are causing a worldwide mass bleaching event on coral reefs, as seen here on the Great Barrier Reef. Scientists are working on creating more heat-resistant coral to help restore reefs. Veronique Mocellin /AIMS hide caption toggle caption Veronique Mocellin /AIMS Record levels of heat in the ocean are causing a worldwide mass bleaching event on coral reefs. It’s the second one this decade, where the delicate skeletons of corals turn a ghostly white. With mass bleaching only expected to get worse as the climate keeps warming, coral scientists are urgently searching for ways to help reefs endure. Bleaching can kill corals, putting some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world at risk. So scientists are homing in on how bleaching happens. It boils down to relationship drama between corals and a tiny organism that’s too small to see. Scientists estimate that a quarter of all marine species depend on coral reefs. Biologists say that’s a best guess and it’s very likely there are species yet to be …

Extreme coral bleaching could spell worst summer on record for Great Barrier Reef, authority says | Great Barrier Reef

Extreme coral bleaching could spell worst summer on record for Great Barrier Reef, authority says | Great Barrier Reef

Published by skeptic

The Great Barrier Reef is in the midst of what could be its worst summer on record with a widespread and extreme coral bleaching event coming on top of floods, two cyclones and outbreaks of coral-eating starfish, according to an official Australian government report. The “summer snapshot” report released by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science said: “Compared [with] previous summers, cumulative impacts have been much higher this summer and a widespread bleaching event is still unfolding.” The report says 39% of 1,080 individual reefs surveyed from the air had experienced either very high (61-90% coral cover bleached) or extreme (more than 90%) levels of bleaching. Such high levels had been observed on reefs in all three regions of the park, which is a world heritage-listed natural wonder, but the most heat stress had occurred in the south. The reef marine park, covering an area the size of Italy and including 3,000 individual reefs, is in the middle of a fifth mass bleaching in only eight years …