coral tagged posts

A chemical found in many soaps, laundry detergents and cosmetics is killing young coral reefs at concentrations commonly found in the environment, according to a new study. Corals, which provide habitat for a rich array of fish and other marine life, are threatened worldwide. The new study is the first to find that benzophenone-2 (BP-2) is toxic to coral reefs, although it builds upon previous studies that reported that corals are harmed by other chemicals in wastewater and runoff.

Researchers exposed baby corals in a laboratory to different concentrations of BP-2, which is found in hundreds of personal care products. Increased BP-2 exposure caused increased rates of coral death, DNA damage and bleaching, which is when corals turn white, are stressed and more likely to die.

The levels of...

Increasing forest protection in the right areas could increase benefits up to 10.4 percent to coral reef condition, according to a recent study of Fiji’s forests and reefs in Marine Policy. Benefits from protected forests such as improved water quality due to decreased runoff and increased distribution of the vegetation are more closely linked to coral reef health than previously thought.

Researchers from the University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society modeled six different scenarios for improving Fiji’s coral reefs through the management of their forests...

Although some scientists suggest that coral reefs are headed for certain doom, a new study by University of Florida and Caribbean researchers indicates even damaged reefs can recover. In a 13-year study in the Cayman Islands, warm ocean temperatures led to bleaching and infectious disease that reduced live coral cover by more than 40 percent between 1999 and 2004. But seven years later, the amount of live coral on the reefs, the density of young colonies critical to the reefs’ future health, and the overall size of corals all had returned to the 1999 state, the study showed.

Much of the reef surrounding Little Cayman Island is protected, so damage from fishing, anchoring and some other human activities is minimized, said UF researcher Chuck Jacoby, who helped with the study.

“Nevertheless...

Coral has been prized in Japanese jewellery since ancient times. As early as the Nara period, in the 8th century AD, the royal crown of Emperor Shomu and his Empress Komyo incorporated 10 hanging, red jewellery coral beads from the Mediterranean Sea.

With the depletion of the Mediterranean’s coral resources, Japan itself has increasingly become the main source of top-grade material, and an increasing demand from wealthy Chinese has encouraged poaching in Japanese waters.

The Japanese and Chinese governments recently agreed to work together to stamp out jewellery coral poaching from the waters of Okinawa – a rare case of co-operation between the two countries.

Hiroshi Hasegawa, an environmental chemistry professor at Kanazawa University on the Sea of Japan said there was a correlation b...

The severe loss of coral reefs that is expected to occur over the 21st century may be offset somewhat if corals are able to adapt to the heat stress caused by climate change, a new study suggests. The study has uncovered evidence that corals may already be adapting to temperature changes in the ocean. However, reductions in coral bleaching are only expected to continue if greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced. The study was published on October 28, 2013 in Global Change Biology.

Coral bleaching is a process whereby warm water temperatures trigger the release of symbiotic algae, called zooxanthellae, living within the coral tissue. The algae supply the coral with valuable nutrients from photosynthesis...

Coral reefs provide a home to fish and protect coasts from eroding. But, they are threatened, and have suffered from ocean warming. In the Seychelles, a project is underway to transplant healthy coral onto dying reefs.

It’s early afternoon as the divers resurface. One by one, members of the team climb on board the boat that has been anchoring off the coast of the small Seychelles island of Cousin in the Indian Ocean. They start shivering in the heavy winds shaking the boat, and look exhausted. The’ve just finished their second dive of the day; each was one-and-a-half hours long.

They’ve been busy underwater, cleaning the ropes and nets of what they refer to as their “coral nursery” – a set of ropes and nets hanging from pipes, which are in turn fixed on the ground...

To prevent coral reefs around the world from dying off, deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are required, says a new study from Carnegie’s Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira. They find that all existing coral reefs will be engulfed in inhospitable ocean chemistry conditions by the end of the century if civilization continues along its current emissions trajectory. Their work will be published July 3 by Environmental Research Letters.

Coral reefs are havens for marine biodiversity and underpin the economies of many coastal communities. But they are very sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry resulting from greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to coastal pollution, warming waters, overdevelopment, and overfishing.

Ricke and Caldeira, along with colleagues from Institut Pierre Simon Laplace...