'chasing coral' netflix documentary

dujac · Jul 17, 2017

according to this documentary, rising ocean temperatures are causing coral reef bleaching

they do a good job of recording their subjects, using high-tech time-lapse photography

dujac · Jul 18, 2017

"Climate change is the greatest global threat to coral reef ecosystems. Scientific evidence now clearly indicates that the Earth's atmosphere and ocean are warming, and that these changes are primarily due to greenhouse gases derived from human activities."

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coralreef-climate.html

waltky · Nov 4, 2017

Half of Hawaii’s Coral Reefs Bleached...

Scientists: Half of Hawaii’s Coral Reefs Bleached
November 03, 2017 — Nearly half of Hawaii’s coral reefs were bleached during heat waves in 2014 and 2015 and fisheries close to shore are declining, a group of scientists told state lawmakers.

The scientists from the Nature Conservancy briefed the lawmakers Thursday about what they called an unprecedented situation for Hawaii’s sea life. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials said 56 percent of the Big Island’s coral were bleached, along with 44 percent along West Maui and 32 percent around Oahu.

Worse to come

The scientists said more severe and frequent bleaching is predicted. “In the 2030s, 30 to 50 percent of the years will have major bleaching events in Hawaii,” said Kuulei Rogers of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. When ocean temperatures rise, coral expel the algae they rely on for food. This causes their skeletons to lose their color and appear “bleached.” Coral can recover if the water cools. But they die if high temperatures persist. Eventually reefs degrade, leaving fish without habitats and coastlines less protected from storm surges.

Fish decline as well

As for Hawaii’s fish, University of Hawaii researchers compiled data for 15 years and found a 90 percent decline in overall catch from the last 100 years, which includes fish such as ulua, moi and oio. “What we found was pretty overwhelming,” University of Hawaii scientist Alan Friedlander said. “About 40 percent of the species will be classified as overfished. The correlations are more people, less fish.” Friedlander suggested expanding marine reserves and said gear restrictions and size limits help, but bag limits and quotas don’t work.

Fish swim over a patch of bleached coral in Hawaii's Kaneohe Bay off the island of Oahu. Nearly half of Hawaii's coral reefs were bleached during heat waves in 2014 and 2015 and fisheries close to shore are declining, a group of scientists told state lawmakers.

Those who fish argued against more regulations. “If the fishermen don’t stand up and come down here and fight for fisherman’s rights now, we’ll lose more than we can possibly ever imagine,” said Makani Christensen of the Hunting, Farming and Fishing Association.

https://www.voanews.com/a/hawaii-coral-reef-bleaching/4099707.html
Click to expand...

waltky · Nov 27, 2017

Project they hope could restore damaged ecosystems around the world...

Coral transplant raises hopes for Barrier Reef
Mon, Nov 27, 2017 - Coral bred in one part of the Great Barrier Reef was successfully transplanted into another area, Australian scientists said yesterday, in a project they hope could restore damaged ecosystems around the world.

In a trial at the reef’s Heron Island off Australia’s east coast, the researchers late last year collected large amount of coral spawn and eggs, grew them into larvae and then transplanted them into areas of damaged reef. When they returned eight months later, they found juvenile coral that had survived and grown, aided by underwater mesh tanks. “The success of this new research not only applies to the Great Barrier Reef, but has potential global significance,” lead researcher Peter Harrison of Southern Cross University said. “It shows we can start to restore and repair damaged coral populations where the natural supply of coral larvae has been compromised.”

Harrison said his mass larval-restoration approach contrasts with the “coral gardening” method of breaking up healthy coral and sticking healthy branches on reefs in the hope they will regrow, or growing coral in nurseries before transplantation. He was optimistic his approach, which was successfully trialed earlier in the Philippines in an area of reef highly degraded by blast fishing, could help reefs recover on a larger scale. “The results are very promising and our work shows that adding higher densities of coral larvae leads to higher numbers of successful coral recruits,” he said.

The Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure on Earth, is reeling from an unprecedented second-straight year of coral bleaching, because of warming sea temperatures linked to climate change. David Wachenfeld, chief scientist of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority that manages the area, said there was a need for such efforts amid the accelerating effects of climate change. “The success of these first trials is encouraging — the next challenge is to build this into broader scale technology that is going to make a difference to the reef as a whole,” Wachenfeld said.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2017/11/27/2003683007
Click to expand...

waltky · Dec 27, 2017

Savin' the world's corals...

As Corals Wither Around The World, Scientists Try IVF
December 26, 2017 • Battered by climate change and pollution, coral reefs are dying off. But in Guam, one group of scientists is trying to revive these tiny animals — with the coral equivalent of IVF.

A couple hours after sunset, everyone is donning a wetsuit. In minutes, 15 to 20 dark figures are standing in a graveyard on the west coast of Guam. But they're not here for the tombstones. They've come to help rescue something from dying in the waters nearby — the corals. Corals along Guam's coastlines have been dying in recent years, and they're not alone. Warming seawater and increasing ocean acidity are damaging reef ecosystems around the world. Some scientists and environmentalists fear a worldwide collapse by 2050. The coral reefs we see are actually colonies of millions of tiny animals. In a single night, the corals cast a fog of sperm and eggs into the water, some of which fertilize to make baby coral larvae. And some of those larvae settle back onto the reef, making it grow. Dirk Petersen says, "OK, let's go. It's gonna be the night, guys. Spawning time." Petersen is the founder and executive director of SECORE, short for sexual coral reproduction. His mission is to gather sperm and eggs from the corals, fertilize them in the lab and return the baby corals to the wild. Think of it like IVF for the reefs.

One organization is trying to save dying reefs by fertilizing coral in the lab, like this spawning colony of Acropora digitifera.

The team divvies up the collection containers and heads to the beach. Everyone adjusts their snorkels, sharing lights so they can see what they're doing. They wade out into the water. "It's just a constant safari," says Richard Ross, a biologist with the California Academy of Sciences. "You hope you're going to see the corals spawning. And you never know if it's even going to happen." Ross and the others are focusing their efforts on this night on staghorn corals, a species that forms thickets of branching antlers. The staghorn corals have been hit hard in Guam by four years of bleaching and one episode of extremely low tides, not to mention soil runoff and heavy fishing. "A bunch of us coral reef managers were just so sick of just watching things die," says Laurie Raymundo, a biologist at the University of Guam. "And [we] really felt we want[ed] to start doing something — restore, rehabilitate — those are technical terms. The emotional terms are: 'Let's just see if we can watch something live for once.' "

This is in large part why SECORE is here. The group got its start in the Caribbean, and it has come to the Pacific to teach others its technique to restore reefs. The method depends entirely on spawn. Al Licuanan of De La Salle University in the Philippines is eagerly eyeing the water for any sign of it. He explains, "It's been described like an upside-down rain of yellow, blue, pink. You find this foamlike muck." At last, the spawning happens. A thick speckling of little white dots are swirling everywhere. This is the future of the reef. There is just one problem — it's the wrong species. The spawn is from the big Porites boulder corals, and the team doesn't have the right equipment to collect it. Petersen admits defeat. "Patience," he says. "Tomorrow is another night." The next night, they bring the right equipment, but there is not enough spawning. The following night, they try a different location, but again, there is just not enough material to collect. The spawning window has closed. It's part of what makes the work so difficult.

Corals around the world have been dying because of warming waters and pollution. Some researchers hope they can reverse the trend by growing new corals in the lab.

A couple days later, a fiery sunset lights up the sky on the west coast of Guam. Nicole Burns, a graduate student at the University of Guam, kicks her way down to a coral nursery 1,200 feet from shore. When she surfaces, she is holding a cement pyramid in her hand with a staghorn the size of a crouton growing on its surface. This baby is 2 years old and came from spawn collected at sea and fertilized onshore. It has been growing in the nursery ever since, cared for by Burns and others. "We tend to them," Burns says. "Once they're big enough, then you plant them out to be in nature and in the wild." The next day, this baby will be placed on a reef farther up the coast, which is where everyone is hoping it'll grow up to stand guard against an uncertain future.

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/26/556121513/as-corals-wither-around-the-world-scientists-try-ivf
Click to expand...

waltky · Jan 5, 2018

Granny thinks coral is like a canary inna coal mine...

Coral reefs head for 'knock-out punch'
4 January 2018 - Repeat bouts of warmer seawater are posing a significant challenge to the world's tropical corals.

A study of 100 reefs, published in Science Magazine, shows the interval between bleaching events in recent decades has shortened dramatically. It has gone from once every 25-30 years in the early 1980s to an average of just once every six years today. Bleaching is caused by anomalously warm water, which prompts coral polyps to eject their symbiotic algae. This drains the corals of their colour and is fatal unless conditions are reversed in a reasonably short time.

A diver surveys bleached/dead corals on Zenith Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef

But even if temperatures fall back quickly, it can still take many years for damaged reefs to fully recover. "If you go into the ring with a heavyweight boxer, you could probably stand up for one round, but once that second round comes - you're going down," said Dr Mark Eakin from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). "The acceleration in the return rate of bleaching events matches up very well with what the climate models have been telling us - that predict that by mid-century most of the world's coral reefs will be suffering yearly, or near yearly, heat stress," he told BBC News.

Striking difference between bleached and healthy coral on the Great Barrier Reef

One telling observation in the assessment is that as global warming has progressed - the "cold" phases in the famous La Niña-El Niño ocean oscillation have today become warmer than the "hot" phases were three decades ago. "There basically are no cool years anymore; they are just years that aren't too hot," said Dr Eakin. Aside from their beauty, tropical corals provide important ecosystem services upon which the livelihoods of many millions of people depend. Reefs, for example, afford coastal protection from big waves, storms, and floods; they also act as key spawning and nursery grounds for economically important fish and other aquatic species.

A turtle swimming over a destroyed reef in the Indian Ocean

This study concentrates on the climate challenge to corals, but many reefs are also experiencing other stresses, including pollution, overfishing and habitat destruction. Unsurprisingly, the authors, led by Prof Terry Hughes from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Australia, call for renewed efforts to constrain and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. But it is interesting to note how more radical conservation solutions are now increasingly being discussed. These touch on topics such as engineered super-corals that are better able to cope in very warm water, and how you might go about artificially cooling a reef at times of high stress.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42571484
Click to expand...

Log in or Sign up

'chasing coral' netflix documentary

dujac Well-Known Member

dujac Well-Known Member

waltky Well-Known Member

waltky Well-Known Member

waltky Well-Known Member

waltky Well-Known Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

'chasing coral' netflix documentary

dujac Well-Known Member

dujac Well-Known Member

waltky Well-Known Member

waltky Well-Known Member

waltky Well-Known Member

waltky Well-Known Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches