great barrier reef tagged posts

Australia has pledged A$500 million ($379 million) in an effort to rescue the ailing Great Barrier Reef in the country’s largest-ever investment in coral reef conservation.

The landmark plan includes funds for improving water quality by reducing pollution from farm fertilizer runoff, and encourage reef restoration by experimenting with laboratory-grown coral that is more durable at higher temperatures, the New YorkTimes reports. The proposal also includes A$58 million ($43.8 million) to stem the spread of crown-of-thorn starfish, a poisonous coral-eating predator.

“We’ll be improving the monitoring of the reef’s health and the measurement of its impacts,” Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said at the plan’s announcement on Sunday...

Prolonged ocean warming events, known as marine heatwaves, take a significant toll on the complex ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef. This is according to a new study on the impacts of the 2016 marine heatwave, published in Nature. In surveying the 3,863 individual reefs that make up the system off Australia’s north-east coast, scientists found that 29% of communities were affected. In some cases up to 90% of coral died, in a process known as bleaching.

This occurs when the stress of elevated temperatures causes a breakdown of the coral’s symbiotic relationship with its algae, which provide the coral with energy to survive, and give the reef its distinctive colours.

Certain coral species are more susceptible to this heat-induced stress, and the 2016 marine heatwave saw the death of man...

A powerful cyclone that smashed into northeastern Australia could have caused further damage to the under-pressure Great Barrier Reef, turning parts into an “underwater wasteland”, scientists warned Thursday, March 30.

There are already fears for the survival of corals in the central and northern areas of the World Heritage-listed marine ecosystem that stretches 2,300 kilometers (around 1,430 miles) off the Queensland state coast, after two consecutive years of mass bleaching from warming sea temperatures.

While storms can bring relief through rain and cloud cover to corals suffering from heat stress, Tropical Cyclone Debbie, which barreled through the region this week, mostly struck the reef’s southern parts, which have not been as seriously impacted by bleaching.

“It basically came throu...

The massive bleaching of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral ecosystem in the world, is even worse than anticipated, according to research published in Nature earlier this month. “We didn’t expect to see this level of destruction to the Great Barrier Reef for another 30 years,” the lead author, Terry P. Hughes, told The New York Times. “In the north, I saw hundreds of reefs—literally two-thirds of the reefs were dying and are now dead.”

Bleaching primarily occurs when rising seawater temperatures lead the corals to expel the symbiotic algae living within them, draining the corals of their color and eliminating their principal food source...

Australian authorities have raised the level of threat due to coral bleaching in theGreat Barrier Reef after an increased loss of corals was detected north of the reef, its most unpolluted zone, the media reported on Tuesday.

The Great Barrier Reef, declared a Heritage Site by Unesco, extends up to 2,300 km in northeast Australia and is the world’s largest coral system.

According to GBRMPA, the regions most affected by the bleaching and that has aggravated in the last two weeks, is located close to the Lizard Island.

The threat of major coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef looks to be receding with the onset of stormier weather including the formation of the first tropical cyclone of the season likely to cross the coast. Sea temperatures are warmer than average from about Townsville all the way down the coast to the NSW-Victorian border, creating one of the components for coral stress.

Unusually calm conditions over much of the Great Barrier Reef have also contributed to setting up possible bleaching events as clearer water lets more sunlight reach the sea floor. During bleaching events, corals expel the algae that provide as much as 90 per cent of the energy they need to grow and reproduce, killing some of them.

“Heat makes light toxic,” Andrew Baird, a coral reef ecologist at James Cook Univers...

Dozens of new types of coral have been identified in a remote section of the Great Barrier Reef and it has been described as a ‘lost world’ by researchers. Scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and Torres Strait Regional Authority have been studying the area of Torres Strait for the last three years.

Their findings were presented at National Environmental Research Program conference in Cairns last week, reports the Cairns Post.

The researchers were looking at five different sites from central to eastern Torres Strait and they discovered 91 new species of coral in the region.

Dr Scott Bainbridge, from AIMS, said: ‘These reefs are in extremely good condition.

‘They are managed by the local communities, and potentially these may also be important to southe...