It's not easy being a coral reef

Coral reefs face growing threats

Posted by Andrew Sharpless (Guest Contributor) at 3:55 PM on 05 Jul 2006

Coral reefs just can't catch a break. It's not enough that deep sea corals are ripped from the ocean floor by destructive trawling -- now shallow water corals are contending with global warming.

High sea temperatures stress coral, making them susceptible to disease and premature death. Last year, up to 40 percent of coral died in abnormally warm seas around the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the stage is set for the same to happen this year. Yesterday, ENN reported that Caribbean Sea temperatures have reached their annual high two months ahead of schedule.

Then today, the Washington Post highlighted a growing and lesser known problem facing all coral reefs: ocean acidification. The escalating level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making the world's oceans more acidic, which, by the end of the century, could literally dissolve coral reefs.

Have you ever tried putting a penny in a can of Coke for a couple of weeks? Think of coral reefs as the penny and the ocean as the can of Coke. Then put the can of Coke on top of your stove and run over it with a bulldozer ... you've just replicated the ocean environment coral reefs are experiencing.

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a lot of deaths at once

Thanks, Andrew. Since the reefs that corals build support entire communities of animals and plants, their ever more rapid disappearance may represent the first big destruction of an ecosystem caused (to a great extent at least) by global warming.

Other ecosystems too are endangered on account of global warming, apparently, such as where polar ice is melting away from sea coasts, where permafrost is melting, where alpine environments are moving uphill, where the more dense concentrations of moisture are shifting vertically in rainforest canopies. But the corals deserve special consideration, inasmuch as they seem to be pressured by more than one CO2-related challenge at once.

I assume the rise in water temperature either directly affects adversely the corals' metabolism (but how?), or gives a positive advantage to parasitic or disease-bearing organisms that infect them.

As for ocean acidification, it is my understanding that there has been a slight shift in pH levels away from the alkaline end and toward the acid end; but technically the waters of the ocean are not yet acidified. Still, it is apparently enough to impede the growth in corals of the harder parts of their bodies. And presumably it is affecting other marine invertebrates, including crustaceans and mollusks, who have exoskeletons in which calcium is an important component.

After all, it is well known in fossil preparation that when a relatively small and delicate vertebrate fossil is found in a limestone matrix, often the best thing to do is let the whole piece soak in a weak acid bath. And limestone, of course, is petrified ancient sea floors, onto which the shells of countless minuscule crustaceans had precipitated.

Mind you, I am not a scientist, and cannot vouch for anything I have written, which is just thrown together from here and there. Anyone who can correct me, please do so.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:43 PM on 06 Jul 2006

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