coral reef tagged posts

Coral reefs have been called the “canary in the coalmine” for the devastating impacts of climate change. While these colorful underwater ecosystems cover less than 0.2% of the sea floor, they are critically important: 25% of all marine life depend on them at some point in their life cycle, and nearly 1 billion people rely on them for everything — from food security to tourism and livelihoods, and to protection from storms. 

But they’re dying fast. Coral reefs face the greatest extinction risk of any ecosystem on earth. More than half of them have been lost over the past 50 years. Even if leaders succeed in hitting the 1.5 degree Celsius climate targets, the world is projected to still lose up to 90% of its coral reefs, posing a major disruption of coastal communities.

The world lost about 14 percent of its coral reefs in the decade after 2009, mainly because of climate change, according to a sweeping international report on the state of the world’s corals. The report, issued late Monday, underscores the catastrophic consequences of global warming while also offering some hope that some coral reefs can be saved if humans move quickly to rein in greenhouse gases.

“Coral reefs are the canary in the coal mine telling us how quickly it can go wrong,” said David Obura, one of the report’s editors and chairman of the coral specialist group for the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The 14 percent decline, he said, was cause for deep concern...

Healthy marine ecosystems are essential for human well-being, and millions of people around the world rely on coral reefs for food, protection, recreation, medicine, cultural connection and economic opportunities. So, the decline of coral reefs is not just an ocean-lover’s issue; it’s also a global problem that requires collaborative action.

“The situation with coral reefs is quite alarming,” said Titouan Bernicot, founder of Coral Gardeners, a coral restoration collective in Moorea, French Polynesia. 

Studies have found that live global coral coverage has declined by 50 percent since the 1950s and is expected to decline by about 70 to 90 percent in the next 20 years.

Danny DeMartini, chief scientific officer and co-founder of Kuleana Coral Restoration, a nonprofit organisation i...

An international group of researchers representing thousands of coral scientists across the globe is calling for new commitments and actions by the world’s policymakers to protect and restore coral reefs. In a paper presented July 20 at the International Coral Reef Symposium, the scientists said that the coming decade will likely offer the last chance for policymakers at all levels to prevent coral reefs “from heading towards world-wide collapse.”

The paper, developed by the International Coral Reef Society, pushes for three strategies to save the reefs: addressing climate change, improving local conditions and actively restoring coral.

“The model projections show that up to 30% of coral reefs will persist through this century if we limit global warming to 1...

We are seeing declines in coral colonies throughout the world, including reefs off Australia, Hawaii, the Florida Keys and in the Indo-Pacific region. The widespread decline is fueled in part by climate-driven heat waves that are warming the world’s oceans and leading to what’s known as coral bleaching, the breakdown of the mutually beneficial relationship between corals and resident algae. But other factors are contributing to the decline of coral reefs as well, including pollution and overfishing.

According to a new study, “Local conditions magnify coral loss after marine heat waves,” published in the journal Science, what’s key to coral reefs surviving climate-driven heat waves and subsequent bleaching is managing global climate change — and local conditions.

“We foun...

In a makeshift saltwater nursery located on an offshore Singapore island, a vital scientific experiment is taking place involving corals and sea invertebrates – and Lego bricks.  

“We needed to create flat and stable surfaces for the animals to rest on,” explained Neo Mei Lin, a leading marine biologist and senior research fellow from the National University of Singapore’s Tropical Marine Science Institute. “Detachable Lego bricks proved very useful in helping us to hold corals and giant clams in place.”

This quirky and ingenious approach has benefited Neo and her colleague Jani Tanzil, a fellow marine scientist at the institute...

Coral reefs across the world may disappear by the 2040s, according to a new report. While it’s tempting to blame ‘humanity’ for this crisis, the truth is that it is the social formation called capitalism that is central to global warming.

With a recent report titled “Projections of Future Coral Bleaching Conditions,” published by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in November, Leticia Carvalho—head of the Marine and Freshwater Branch of UNEP—said on December 21 that coral reefs are the “canary in the coalmine for climate’s impact on oceans.” The image of the canary in the coal mine is used over and over again to refer to many aspects of the climate catastrophe: reflecting on his studies of glacier decline in Greenland, glaciologist Ian Howat said that “Gr...

The vast, underexplored seas covering much of the planet could be the key to saving what remains of a more familiar undersea feature, a new study finds. The “living rock” that thrives in tropical shallows around the world, coral supports a quarter of all marine life. Yet around 20 percent of the world’s coral is already gone, and most of the rest is severely threatened by climate breakdown, overfishing and pollution.

Now, a deep dive into history on the “high seas” — the waters that lie beyond maritime borders — is providing a ray of hope for the world’s reefs: Combing through historical data and more than half a million records on the distribution of corals worldwide, researchers identified more than 116 coral reefs flourishing throughout the high seas.

Conser...

Transplanting coral is difficult work. “You only have 20 minutes to dive down 30 metres and transplant the coral to the correct part of the rock, where hopefully it will live for hundreds of years,” explains Serço Ekşiyan, one of a small group of volunteers who have taken on the huge task of saving the corals around the Princes’ Islands (Adalar), a picturesque archipelago in the Marmara Sea about a 40-minute boat ride from Istanbul.

The Marmara Sea, made up of water from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, is home to 24 Alcyonacea coral species whose existence is threatened by the onslaught of nearby property development. Among those disappearing are sea whips, sea pens, sea fans and some types of red and yellow soft corals.

“Most of these corals you would never find outsid...

Scientists reached a major breakthrough recently in their efforts to restore coral off the coast of the Florida Keys. Researchers in South Florida have figured out a way to get coral to spawn more rapidly, which is notable because much of the coral in the Florida Reef Tract is dying. Over the last 40 years, nearly 90% of the live corals that once covered those reefs have died off.

Scientists are using a technique called microfragmentation or reskinning to get coral to reproduce, says Sarah Fangman, superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, which is leading a 15-year, $100 million project to restore the coral.

“The Florida Reef Tract is the only barrier reef system that we have in the United States. The only one,” Fangman says...