topic: Climate Change And Coral Reefs

topic: Climate Change And Coral Reefs

Social media activity version | Lean version

‘Our life support system is at risk’: Interview with ‘Her Deepness’ Sylvia Earle
- At the 9th Our Ocean Conference in Athens, Mongabay’s Elizabeth Claire Alberts interviewed oceanographer and marine biologist Sylvia Earle about the pressures facing our oceans, actions needed to turn things around, and how to find hope for the future.
- Earle has been a trailblazer in her career as a scientist, with more than 225 publications to her name, leading more than 100 expeditions, and breaking records as the first woman to venture into the deep ocean in a submersible and also to perform the deepest untethered sea walk.
- She’s currently president and chair of the NGO Mission Blue and an explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society.
- Now in her late 80s, she still spends most of her time traveling the world to inspire action to protect the ocean.

Global coral bleaching now underway looks set to be largest on record
- Scientists say that coral reefs are currently undergoing a global bleaching event, with more than 54% of the world’s coral reef areas in the territorial waters of over 50 countries experiencing heat stress. According to one scientist, the percentage of areas dealing with bleaching-level heat stress “has been increasing by roughly 1% per week.”
- To assess the current bleaching event, scientists drew on satellite-derived sea surface temperature data and in-water measurements.
- Experts say the current El Niño, a phase in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern, in combination with rising global sea temperatures, is responsible for the extensive coral bleaching.
- Mongabay interviewed scientists most familiar with coral reef bleaching data, and experts attending the 9th Our Ocean Conference in Athens, taking place from April 15-17.

Faced with an extreme future, one Colombian island struggles to rebuild
- In 2020, Hurricane Iota destroyed most of the housing and infrastructure on the Island of Providencia, in Colombia’s Caribbean archipelago of San Andres.
- Although the government sent aid and rebuilt homes, communities complained they were left out of the consultation process and that the reconstruction had been poorly done, without addressing the island’s increased vulnerability to climate change.
- Locals sued the government, obtaining a reopening of consultations, which the new left-wing government has agreed must reach a solution that accords with the islanders’ traditional customs.
- More than 700 islands in the Caribbean could be increasingly exposed to more extreme weather, as climate change threatens to make events such as hurricanes more destructive.

‘Corals dying’ as yet more bleaching hits heat-stressed Great Barrier Reef
- Both aerial and in-water surveys have shown that the southern section of the Great Barrier Reef is undergoing extensive coral bleaching.
- Surveys have also shown “limited bleaching” in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef.
- However, scientists and reef managers plan to conduct more air and in-water surveys to further assess the coral bleaching across all parts of the Great Barrier Reef.
- Scientists suspect but have not yet confirmed that a seventh mass bleaching event since 1998 is currently underway; the last mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef happened in 2022.

2023’s top ocean news stories (commentary)
- Marine scientists from six international research and conservation institutions share their list of the top ocean news stories from 2023.
- Hopeful developments this past year include a monumental global treaty to protect biodiversity on the high seas and the regulation of international trade in 97 species of sharks and rays under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
- At the same time, 2023 was the hottest year on record, with widespread bleaching of corals in the Caribbean and Great Barrier Reef, and many more hot years forecast as humanity’s emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming continue.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Indonesia launches new front in climate campaign focusing on seagrass
- Indonesia has published a road map for seagrass protection and rehabilitation, as part of its efforts to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis.
- Seagrass meadows are estimated to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a much greater rate, hectare for hectare, than even tropical rainforests.
- Indonesia has long been recognized as a crucial country for protecting the underwater flowering plants, as it’s estimated to host at least a tenth of the world’s seagrass meadows.

Climate refugees? As the sea warms, corals thrive in Japan’s cool waters
- As tropical and subtropical coral reefs succumb to bleaching due to climate change in many parts of the world, the idea that they could take refuge in cooler, temperate seas has offered cause for hope.
- For a while, this is exactly what researchers thought was happening in Japan, where corals are replacing seaweed as the dominant benthos in many places, shaking up both ecosystems and coastal economies.
- But the latest research has tempered those hopes, showing that it’s mainly Japan’s genetically distinct temperate corals that have been expanding their range and edging out seaweed.
- The long-term implications of this shift are unclear, but researchers say it could take tens of thousands of years for these new high-latitude coral communities to evolve the structures, niches and symbioses necessary to support biodiversity on par with the world’s current tropical reefs.

With record ocean temps, is the Great Barrier Reef facing catastrophe?
- The inaugural international edition of the famed South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and conference took place from October 15-22, 2023 in Sydney and Mongabay spoke with some of the most interesting presenters there.
- On this edition of the Mongabay Newscast, multiple guests working in coral reef conservation, kelp reforestation and sustainable agriculture detail their projects and challenges they’re tackling.
- Like the catastrophic Great Barrier Reef bleaching event of 2016, if the current conditions line up just right, “we could lose a huge part of the reef by February,” says guest Dean Miller of the Forever Reef Project, which is now racing to add the final coral specimens to its “biobank.”
- Guests also include John “Charlie” Veron from the Forever Reef Project, Mic Black from Rainstick, and Adriana Vergés from the Kelp Forest Alliance.

How the United Nations, kids and corporations saved the Red Sea from an oil disaster
- In August, an international effort led by the U.N. averted a massive oil spill in the Red Sea.
- The FSO Safer, a deteriorating oil tanker anchored in Yemen’s Marib Basin, posed a 1.14-million-barrel environmental and humanitarian threat, with a potential $20 billion cleanup cost.
- Even schoolchildren from Westbrook Elementary School in Maryland recognized the urgency and initiated their own fundraising efforts, but most oil companies with historical involvement in the Marib Basin have failed to contribute so far.
- While some nations and organizations stepped up to help, ongoing challenges in securing funding highlight the need for collective responsibility in preventing environmental disasters.

Hope, but no free pass, as Pacific corals show tolerance to warming oceans
- New research suggests that coral reefs in the Pacific islands of Palau are becoming increasingly tolerant to thermal stress brought on by climate change.
- The study found that Palau’s coral reefs appeared to suffer less bleaching over three successive marine heat waves in 1998, 2010 and 2017.
- While the findings provide some hope for coral reefs, one expert says the study has some limitations in providing a clear picture of how corals respond to different heat events.
- Scientists also say that reducing carbon emissions is essential to safeguard coral reefs — and to secure the planet’s future.

New hope in the Mediterranean: Scientists find deep corals withstand heat waves
- Over the past decade, the Mediterranean Sea has experienced frequent, destructive marine heat waves that have impacted a diversity of marine life, including red gorgonians (Paramuricea clavata).
- In 2022, researchers launched “Noah’s Ark of the Deep,” an expedition to study the gorgonians in the western Mediterranean Basin. In April, the second mission of the expedition explored gorgonians below 50 meters (164 feet).
- While the gorgonians in shallow waters suffered as temperatures rose, corals in deeper waters appeared untouched by the impacts of thermal stress.
- Researchers are currently trying to understand if these deeper gorgonians can help repopulate shallow populations if climate conditions allow them to regenerate.

Science and culture join forces to restore 120 miles of Hawaiian reefs
- A new program in Hawai‘i, known as Ākoʻakoʻa, will focus on restoring 193 kilometers (120 miles) of coral reefs off the west of the Big Island, which have been in decline for the past 50 years.
- A key aspect of the program will be the building of a new research and coral propagation facility in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island.
- While the program will be largely science-driven, it will also rely on the traditional knowledge of community leaders and cultural practitioners.

Expedition to Pacific ecosystems hopes to learn from their resilience
- An expedition led by National Geographic’s Pristine Seas project will voyage across the Pacific over five years to gather information about marine ecosystems needing protection.
- The Pristine Seas team will collaborate with Pacific island nation governments, communities, Indigenous and local peoples, and local scientists, to gather data and produce films.
- The first stop of the expedition will be the southern Line Islands, part of Kiribati, to understand how its reefs recovered after an El Niño triggered a large-scale bleaching event in 2015 and 2016.

Sweltering heat wave hits Sri Lanka; climate change will likely bring more
- As a heat wave sweeps across Asia, Sri Lanka continues to issue heat warnings to the public as the country experiences much higher than normal temperatures coupled with high humidity and threatening health impacts.
- Research has already shown that annually averaged mean minimum temperatures are increasing in most parts of Sri Lanka and climate projections indicate that Sri Lanka should brace for more intense and regular heat waves by 2030.
- Main cities record higher temperatures acting as urban heat islands and experts suggest that town planning should now include strategies to reduce heat as an adaptation for impending future heat stresses.

As oceans warm, temperate reef species edge closer to extinction, study shows
- New research found that most Australian shallow reef species, including fish, corals, seaweeds and invertebrates, experienced population declines over a decade, mainly in response to warming events driven by human-induced climate change.
- While scientists recorded species decline across Australian waters, some of the most pronounced changes occurred on the temperate reefs of southern Australia, a region that has received less conservation attention than tropical reefs.
- The authors say temperate reefs could be in greater danger of extinction than tropical species, leading to calls for increased conservation efforts for these threatened ecosystems.

Reef ruckus: Fish fights erupt after mass coral bleaching, study finds
- An international team of researchers studied the behavioral changes among butterflyfish on a series of reefs in the Indo-Pacific before and after the 2016 global mass coral bleaching event.
- They found that following the bleaching event, fish behaved more aggressively toward one another in their newly degraded reef home.
- The energetic toll of encounters involving fighting and chasing one another could have implications for the long-term survival of reef fish species, the study authors conclude.
- Given rates of ocean warming and predictions for more frequent and intense coral bleaching over the longer term, it’s unclear whether reef fish have the capacity to adapt their behavior to their rapidly changing environments.

Machine learning makes long-term, expansive reef monitoring possible
- Conservationists can now monitor climate impacts to expansive marine ecosystems over extended periods of time, a task that used to be impossible, using a tool developed by scientists in the U.S.
- The machine learning tool, called Delta Maps, provides a new way to assess which reefs might be best suited for survival, and which play a key role in delivering larvae to others, and therefore should be targeted for preservation efforts, according to the scientists.
- The scientists used the tool to examine the impacts of climate change on connectivity and biodiversity in the Pacific Ocean’s Coral Triangle, the planet’s most diverse and biologically complex marine ecosystem.
- The authors also noted that the Coral Triangle had more opportunities for rebuilding biodiversity, thanks to the region’s dynamic climate component, than anywhere else on the planet.

An El Niño is forecast for 2023. How much coral will bleach this time?
- Forecasts suggest that an El Niño climate pattern could begin later this year, raising sea temperatures at a time when global temperatures are already higher than ever due to human-driven climate change.
- If an El Niño develops and it becomes a moderate to severe event, it could raise global temperatures by more than 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels, the threshold set by the Paris Agreement.
- An El Niño would generate many impacts on both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, including the potential for droughts, fires, increased precipitation, coral bleaching, invasions of predatory marine species like crown-of-thorns starfish, disruptions to marine food chains, and kelp forest die-offs.

Top mangrove news of 2022
- Mangroves are unique forests adapted to live along the coasts in mostly tropical and subtropical areas of the world.
- Mangroves are in danger as they are cleared to make room for farms, mines, and other human developments.
- Mangroves provide a bevy of important ecosystem services such as flood and erosion control and greenhouse gas storage, and they provide habitat for many species.
- Below are some of the most notable mangrove news items of 2022.

2022’s top ocean news stories (commentary)
- Marine scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, share their list of the top 10 ocean news stories from 2022.
- Hopeful developments this past year include the launch of negotiations on the world’s first legally binding international treaty to curb plastic pollution, a multilateral agreement to ban harmful fisheries subsidies and a massive expansion of global shark protections.
- At the same time, the climate crises in the ocean continued to worsen, with a number of record-breaking marine heat waves and an accelerated thinning of ice sheets that could severely exacerbate sea level rise, underscoring the need for urgent ocean-climate actions.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Hunting for future-proof marine plants in the acidic waters bathing a volcano
- The naturally acidic seawater near an underwater volcano in Italy mimic pH levels that according to worst-case climate projections will be common by the end of the century and beyond.
- Scientists are studying local seagrass and seaweed responses to the acidic conditions.
- One question is whether they could be used for restoration purposes in other places that may become more acidic in a not-so-distant future.
- Even so, some researchers point out that these carbon-sequestering marine plants face more immediate challenges from pollution, habitat degradation and warming waters that need addressing for restoration to succeed.

Future reefs: A manifesto to save the world’s coral gardens (commentary)
- Coral reefs cover less than 3% of the ocean but contain a quarter of all marine life. Next to tropical rainforests, they are the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth.
- Fifty of the world’s leading scientists recently laid out a roadmap to save the world’s coral reefs.
- With urgent climate action and by following this roadmap, these oases of beauty may retain critical marine biodiversity and provide a lifeline for coastal communities into the next century and beyond, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Acid test: Are the world’s oceans becoming too ‘acidic’ to support life?
- The world’s oceans absorb about a quarter of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions, buffering us against higher atmospheric CO2 levels and greater climate change. But that absorption has led to a lowering of seawater pH and the acidification of the oceans.
- The process of ocean acidification is recognized as a leading threat to ocean life due to its impairment of calcifying organisms and other marine species. The full impacts of acidification are unknown, but at some point reduced pH could be disastrous biologically.
- Researchers have designated ocean acidification as one of nine planetary boundaries whose limits, if transgressed, could threaten civilization and life as we know it. But there is debate as to whether there is a global boundary for this process, since acidification impacts some regions and species more or less than others, making it hard to quantify.
- Scientists agree that the primary solution to ocean acidification is the lowering of carbon emissions, though some researchers are investigating other solutions, such as depositing alkaline rock minerals into oceans to lower the pH of seawater.

‘Mind-blowing’ marine heat waves put Mediterranean ecosystems at grave risk
- A recent study reveals the widespread effects of climate change-driven marine heat waves on the ecological communities of the Mediterranean Sea.
- Rises in sea surface temperatures as high as 5° Celsius (9° Fahrenheit) above normal have caused die-offs in 50 different taxonomic groups of animals from around the Mediterranean Basin.
- These far-reaching impacts of the warming sea could devastate the fisheries on which many of the Mediterranean region’s 400 million people rely.
- Researchers advocate bolstering and expanding marine protected areas. Although they can’t hold back the warmer waters that have proven deadly to the sea’s rich biodiversity, these sanctuaries can help ensure that these species don’t have to cope simultaneously with other pressures, such as overfishing or pollution.

Study paints ‘bleak picture’ for nearly all marine life without emissions cuts
- New research published in Nature Climate Change has found that nearly 90% of assessed marine life would be at high or critical risk by 2100 if the world continues upon a high-emissions pathway.
- It found that the risks would be more concentrated in the tropics, and that top predators would be more at risk than species lower down the food chain.
- However, if countries drastically reduce their emissions, the study found that climate risk would decrease for more than 98% of these species.

Overlooked and at risk, seagrass is habitat of choice for many small-scale fishers
- Seagrass meadows, rather than coral reefs, are the fishing grounds of choice for many fishing households in four countries in the Indo-Pacific region, a new study shows.
- Fishers in Cambodia, Tanzania, Indonesia and Sri Lanka identified seagrass meadows as being more easily accessible than coral reefs, often without the need for a boat, and less likely to damage equipment such as nets.
- However, seagrasses around the world are disappearing at rates that rival those of coral reefs and tropical rainforests, losing as much as 7% of their area each year.
- The study makes the case for better-informed management of these marine habitats, to ensure their sustainability for the marine life and people who depend on them.

In a former conflict zone in Sri Lanka, a world rich in corals thrives
- The Jaffna Peninsula at the northern tip of Sri Lanka, off-limits for decades because of the country’s civil war, is home to one of the richest collections of corals on the island, a study shows.
- Led by Jaffna native Ashani Arulananthan, the survey cataloged 113 species of hard coral, of which 36 have never been found anywhere else in Sri Lanka.
- Along with the high diversity, the researchers also found less damage from bleaching than in coral reefs elsewhere in Sri Lanka; however, they did note signs of degradation from pollution and fishing activity.
- Arulananthan says it’s important to conserve these diverse coral communities, which show a higher resilience to climate change impacts than other reefs around Sri Lanka.

Study: Climate impacts to disproportionately hurt tropical fishers, farmers
- The majority of 72 coastal communities studied in five countries in the Indo-Pacific region may face significant losses of agricultural and fisheries products — two key food sources — simultaneously under the worst-case climate change projections, a new study shows.
- These potential losses may be coupled with other drivers of change, such as overfishing or soil erosion, which have already caused declining productivity, the study adds.
- But if carbon emissions can be effectively managed to a minimum, the study’s authors say, fewer communities would experience losses in both the agriculture and fisheries sectors, indicating the importance of climate mitigation measures.
- The current global average temperature is 1.1°C (2°F) above pre-industrial times, and climate experts have warned that it could climb to about 3°C (5.4°F) higher by the end of this century if nothing changes.

How will climate change impact cold-water corals? Mostly through food loss, study says
- A new study warns that cold-water corals, also known as deep-water corals, could be most impacted by a decrease in food supply as climate change shifts the dynamics of the planet’s oceans.
- The authors came to this conclusion by examining how cold-water corals survived the last major period of global warming that occurred at the end of the last glacial period and the start of the current interglacial period, which is somewhat analogous to how the Earth is projected to warm by the end of this century.
- However, experts point out that cold-water corals today are subjected to a number of additional stressors, including ocean acidification, destructive fishing practices, and pollution, and that the climate is changing far more rapidly than it did in the past.
- Cold-water corals are considered to be equally important — or perhaps even more important — than tropical corals, which makes understanding their chances of survival of the utmost importance, researchers say.

The Great Barrier Reef is bleaching — once again — and over a larger area
- The Great Barrier Reef is currently experiencing its sixth mass bleaching event, and the fourth event of this kind to happen in the past six years.
- Based on aerial surveys that were concluded this week, bleaching has affected all parts of the Great Barrier Reef, with the most severe bleaching occurring between Cooktown, Queensland, and the Whitsunday Islands.
- Sea surface temperatures around the Great Barrier Reef have been higher than normal, despite the region going through a La Niña climate pattern, which usually brings cooler, stormier weather.
- Climate change remains the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef and other reefs around the world, experts say.

Marine cold spells, a potential buffer against warming seas, are fading away
- A new study has found that marine cold spells have decreased in number and intensity since the 1980s due to climate change.
- Marine cold spells can have both negative and positive impacts on the environment; they can wreak havoc on ecosystems like coral reefs, but they can also buffer the impacts of heat stress during marine heat waves.
- While marine cold spells are decreasing, marine heat waves are increasing — but the relationship between these two kinds of events still isn’t clear, the study says.

Ships sunk in nuclear tests host diverse corals, study says. But do we need them?
- Researchers surveyed 29 warships at Bikini Atoll and Chuuk Lagoon and found that they hosted up to a third of coral genera found on natural reefs in neighboring regions.
- This study has led researchers to ask a controversial question: Can these kinds of shipwrecks act as biodiversity havens for corals?
- While the study does not provide an answer to this question, the authors say this idea should be explored.
- Climate change is one of the biggest threats to coral reefs since rising temperatures can cause widespread bleaching events.

Vulnerable Antarctic reefs reveal wealth of life as rich as tropical corals
- A research expedition led by Greenpeace identified about a dozen new vulnerable marine ecosystems in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea, and documented a range of organisms, some of which were previously unknown to science.
- Researchers argue that it’s vital to protect the Weddell Sea since this region helps to regulate the global oceans.
- This week, negotiators are discussing the establishment of a U.N. treaty that would protect the high seas, which could lead to widespread ocean protection.
- In October, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) will also revisit the proposal to establish three marine sanctuaries in Antarctica, including one in the Weddell Sea.

Can we save coral reefs? | Problem Solved
- Since the 1950s the world has lost half of its coral reef ecosystems.
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that with 1.5°C (2.7°F) of warming above pre-industrial levels we could lose up to 90% of the world’s coral reefs.
- This amount of warming could happen in as little as six years.
- Experts say there’s still time to save coral reefs, but it’ll require swiftly addressing the three largest impacts to reefs: land-based pollution, overfishing and, most importantly, climate change.

Jordan scrambles to save rare Red Sea corals that can withstand climate change
- In Jordan, researchers, activists and fishers are hopeful that their coral reefs — and the life they support — can survive climate change.
- Corals in this northern part of the Red Sea have been shown to be far more resilient to warming ocean temperatures than corals elsewhere.
- Even though they cover only 0.2% of the ocean floor, coral reefs support about 25% of all marine life.

‘There’s not much hope’: Mediterranean corals collapse under relentless heat
- In 2003, a marine heat wave devastated coral reef communities in the Mediterranean Sea, including the reefs in the Scandola Marine Reserve, a protected region off the coast of Corsica.
- More than 15 years later, the coral reef communities in Scandola still have not recovered.
- Researchers determined that persistent marine heat waves, which are now happening every year in the Mediterranean, are preventing Scandola’s slow-growing coral reefs from recuperating.
- Human-induced climate change is the culprit; persistent rising temperatures in the ocean have normalized marine heat waves, not only in the Mediterranean, but in the global oceans.

Safe havens for coral reefs will disappear as oceans warm, study says
- A new study found that coral reef “refugia” — places that have historically protected coral reefs from thermal stress — will decline substantially when global heating reaches 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels; at 2°C (3.6°F), most coral reef refugia will disappear.
- A loss in refugia will expose corals to thermal stress that they will likely be unable to cope with, most likely leading to large-scale loss of coral reefs that will threaten marine biodiversity and food security.
- The authors suggest that management efforts should be refocused to help coral reefs adapt to a warming ocean and to assist in their migration to more hospitable locations.
- However, efforts to help corals adapt to rising temperatures may be futile as long as carbon emissions continue to rise.

Bleached reefs still support nutritious fish, study finds
- A recent study published in the journal One Earth looked at the nutrients available in fisheries in Seychelles before and after bleaching killed around 90% of the island nation’s coral in 1998.
- Warming ocean temperatures have caused mass bleaching of corals across the tropics, sometimes causing the deaths of these reef-building animals, and the phenomenon is expected to continue as a result of climate change.
- The research found that bleached reefs continue to support fisheries that provide essential micronutrients to human communities.

‘Great Blue Wall’ aims to ward off looming threats to western Indian Ocean
- Ten nations in the western Indian Ocean committed this November to create a network of marine conservation areas to hasten progress toward the goal of protecting 30% of the oceans by 2030.
- Less than 10% of the marine expanse in this region currently enjoys protection, and a recent assessment highlighted the price of failure: all the coral reefs are at high risk of collapse in the next 50 years.
- The focus of these efforts won’t just be coral reefs, but also mangroves and seagrass meadows, a lesser-known underwater ecosystem critical for carbon sequestration and oceanic biodiversity.
- Even as overfishing and warming take a toll on marine health, threats from oil and gas extraction are intensifying in this corner of the Indian Ocean.

Restoring coastal forests can protect coral reefs against sediment runoff: Study
- Corals have declined by 50% over the last 30 years, with losses of 70-90% expected by mid-century.
- This mass decline is largely attributed to human activity.
- One of the major threats to coral is sediment runoff from deforested areas, with research estimating 41% of the world’s coral reefs are affected by sediment export.
- A recent study published in Global Change Biology finds that restoring forests could help reduce sediment runoff to 630,000 square kilometers (243,244 square miles) of coral reefs.

We must reverse the pressures on coral reefs before it’s too late (commentary)
- In a letter addressed to state leaders, local governments, and business leaders of the Western Indian Ocean, David Obura and Melita Samoilys urge action to protect coral reefs off East Africa.
- Obura and Samoilys, both leaders of Coastal Oceans Research and Development-Indian Ocean/East Africa, present evidence that coral reefs in the Western Indian Ocean are at a tipping point.
- “We cannot overstate how close our coral reefs are to collapse,” they state. “If we don’t make the right decisions in the next 10 years, coral reefs of the Western Indian Ocean will become irreversibly damaged.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

With coral cover halved, curbing climate change is only way to slow the loss
- A new study estimates that global coral cover is half what it was in the 1950s, with much of that loss linked to human-driven climate change.
- The shrinking of coral cover has translated into a 60% loss in reef biodiversity.
- Reef fish catches peaked in 2002 and have been declining ever since, taking a toll on coastal populations, especially Indigenous communities who are more dependent than non-Indigenous communities on seafood.
- Some of these threats are being tackled at the level of communities and even countries, but it may not be enough given the global nature of the biggest threat.

The first complete map of the world’s shallow tropical coral reefs is here
- Scientists have completed the first-ever global, high-resolution map of the world’s shallow tropical coral reefs.
- When combined with an integrated tool that tracks global coral bleaching events in near-real-time, the new resource provides a comprehensive overview of the trends and changes in global coral reef health.
- While the completion of the map is an achievement in itself, the scientists behind the Allen Coral Atlas say they hope the new resource will spur action to improve coral reef protection.
- The new mapping platform is already being used to support conservation projects in more than 30 countries, including designation of marine protected areas and to inform marine spatial plans.

Humans’ role in climate warming ‘unequivocal,’ IPCC report shows
- The greenhouse gases humans have released into the atmosphere over the past 100 to 150 years has led to a 1.1°C (2°F) rise in global temperatures, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.
- The authors of the IPCC’s latest report use the strongest language yet to connect human activity to climate change, calling the link “unequivocal.”
- The report draws on the findings of thousands of studies, pointing to the need to cut CO2 emissions immediately while also suggesting that many of the impacts of climate change are irreversible.
- This report focuses on the science behind climate change and will be combined with two subsequent reports on the adaptation and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change and ways to mitigate its effects to produce the IPCC’s sixth assessment, scheduled for publication in September 2022.

Great Barrier Reef in danger: Don’t fight the diagnosis, fight the threats (commentary)
- At the end of June, UNESCO issued a draft decision to list the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger” due to multiplying threats. The Australian government reacted by saying the decision was politically motivated, without addressing the problems.
- The “in danger” proposal is currently being debated by the World Heritage Committee during its Extended 44th Session hosted virtually in Fuzhou, China.
- “My plea to the government and to my fellow Australians: don’t let politics thwart science. Don’t fight the diagnosis. Fight the threats. The world is watching and the clock is ticking,” writes the former executive director of the Great Barrier Marine Park Authority in this new opinion piece for Mongabay.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

With growing pressures, can the Philippines sustain its marine reserves?
- The Philippines pioneered a community-based approach to marine protected area management in 1974, which balanced conservation and community livelihood. This became the blueprint of the more than 1,500 marine reserves in the country today.
- While the government depends on its MPA system in protecting its seascapes and meeting its international commitments, research suggest only a third of the country’s MPAs are well-managed and only protect around 1% of the country’s coral reefs.
- With management and resource challenges, these MPAs are threatened by overfishing and illegal fishing practices as well as the worsening impacts of climate change.
- Experts say strengthening the country’s larger MPA systems, synchronizing conservation with fisheries management policies, adapting newer models, and creating a network of MPAs may help the country buffer the impacts of climate change on its rich marine resources.

New Attenborough film sounds alarm on planetary boundaries, but offers hope
- A newly released Netflix documentary, “Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet,” features David Attenborough and Johan Rockström, one of the scientists who introduced the concept of planetary boundaries.
- Planetary boundaries are Earth system processes essential for the planet’s functioning but have an environmental limit to which they can tolerate changes.
- According to experts, if these limits are transgressed, the Earth can be pushed into a new, dangerous state.
- While the film suggests that the planet requires urgent repair, it also offers a clear path forward — and a message of hope.

Satellites keep watch over global reef health in a world first
- Scientists working with the Allen Coral Atlas just launched the world’s first global, satellite-based reef-monitoring system.
- This tool can track global coral bleaching events in near-real-time and provide an overall view of trends and changes in coral reef health that can be used to inform conservation efforts and policy.
- A beta version of the system that was piloted in Hawai‘i during the 2019 Pacific heat wave, and helped identify bleaching hotspots as well as resilient corals that could be used for reef restoration.

Corals are struggling, but they’re too abundant to go extinct, study says
- A study has found that most reef-building coral species are not in imminent danger of being wiped off the planet because they are abundant and occupy vast ranges.
- It looked at 318 species across 900 reefs in the Pacific Ocean, from Indonesia to French Polynesia, and found half a trillion coral colonies in the region.
- The study authors are calling for a revision of the IUCN Red List, according to which a third of all reef-building corals face some degree of extinction risk.
- At the same time the new research underlines the fact that local extinctions and the loss of ecological function are real and present threats.

When seas turn rough, gleaning keeps the fish on the table for some communities
- Communities living close to hard-bottomed shallow shore are more likely to catch animals for seafood consumption in the rough season when other types of fishing often aren’t possible, a new study has found.
- The study also found that shallow habitat mattered: the larger its extent, the more households glean.
- The results further suggest that worsening sea conditions due to climate change will increase the importance of coastal gleaning.
- The authors say that understanding the interactions between people and coastal ecosystems through fishing activities, such as gleaning, is essential for ensuring coastal management that supports social objectives.

We’re approaching critical climate tipping points: Q&A with Tim Lenton
- Over the past twenty years the concept of “tipping points” has become more familiar to the public. Tipping points are critical thresholds at which small changes can lead to dramatic shifts in the state of the entire system.
- Awareness of climate tipping points has grown in policy circles in recent years in no small part thanks to the work of climate scientist Tim Lenton, who serves as the director of the Global Systems Institute at Britain’s University of Exeter.
- Lenton says the the rate at which we appear to be approaching several tipping points is now ringing alarm bells, but “most of our current generation of politicians are just not up to this leadership task”.
- The pandemic however may have caused a shock to the system that could trigger what he calls “positive social tipping points” that “can accelerate the transformative change we need” provided we’re able to empower the right leaders.

A hi-tech eye in the sky lays bare Hawaiʻi’s living coral reefs
- A team of researchers used an airborne mapping technique to survey living coral distribution across the main Hawaiian archipelago.
- Hawaiʻi’s reefs are under threat due to a number of human-driven stressors, such as coastal development, pollution, fishing activities, and climate change events like marine heat waves.
- Places with high levels of live coral included West Hawaiʻi and West Maui, while Oʻahu had some of the lowest coral cover.
- This mapping process can help inform marine protection efforts and identify areas ideal for restoration, according to the research team.

2020’s top ocean news stories (commentary)
- Marine scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, share their list of the top 10 ocean news stories from 2020.
- Hopeful developments this year included some long-overdue attention to Black and other underrepresented groups in marine science; new technologies to prevent deadly ship-whale collisions and track “dark” vessels at sea remotely; and surprising discoveries in the deep sea.
- At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in more trash than ever being dumped in the sea, and stalled international negotiations aimed at protecting waters off Antarctica and in the high seas. 2020 also brought the first modern-day marine fish extinction.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Hawaiian reefs lost almost half their fish to pollution and fishing
- A new study has found a 45% decline in the biomass of important fish species in West Hawai‘i’s reefs across a 10-year period.
- According to the research, sewage pollution was the biggest contributor to declining fish biomass; spearfishing, collection for the aquarium trade, and fishing using lay nets followed closely behind.
- The study will inform new management practices to protect Hawai‘i’s coral reefs, including the state’s 30 by 30 initiative, which aims to designate 30% of Hawai‘i’s nearshore waters as marine protected areas by 2030.

‘Tamper with nature, and everyone suffers’: Q&A with ecologist Enric Sala
- Marine ecologist and National Geographic explore-in-residence Enric Sala has written a new book, The Nature of Nature: Why We Need the Wild, published Aug. 25.
- The book is a primer on “ecology for people in a hurry,” Sala writes, revealing the startling diversity of life on our planet.
- It also serves as a warning, calling out the impacts we humans are having on the global ecosystem, as well as solutions, such as protecting half of the Earth for nature, to address these problems.

App harnesses citizen power to keep tabs on Philippines’ coral reefs
- A series of coral bleaching events have affected reefs across the Philippines in previous years, and this year alone 11 such incidents have been reported.
- But bleached reefs aren’t necessarily dead, with some still able to recover if they are resilient enough and if no further stressors come into play.
- Given that the Philippines has an estimated 33,500 square kilometers (nearly 13,000 square miles) of reefs, a volunteer group is relying on a small but growing army of citizen scientists to keep track of these bleaching incidents by submitting photos online or through an app.
- Citizen science could also help identify other threats to coral reefs, including crown-of-thorns infestation and disease outbreaks, as well as identify corals that are more resilient.

As reef bleaching intensifies, lab-grown corals could help beat the heat
- The Great Barrier Reef suffered its third major coral bleaching event since 2016 this past March, with scientists saying the extent of the damage was far greater this time.
- Up to 60% of the reef was affected in the latest bleaching, which occurs when warming waters force the corals to flush out their life-giving algae.
- But scientists say they’re encouraged by the results of ongoing lab research to create “enhanced” corals, gene-edited to make them more resilient to rising water temperatures.
- Lab and field tests show the hybrid corals have up to 26 times better heat tolerance, which would make them ideal candidates for repopulating bleached reefs.

Sea temperature a critical factor in success of coral reef outplants
- As the world’s coral reef systems decline due to mass bleaching events and other stressors, coral reef gardening or outplanting, the practice of growing coral fragments and planting them on ailing reefs, is being used to restore reefs.
- A new study finds that the survival of coral reef outplants dropped below 50% if the sea surface temperature rose above 30.5° Celsius (89.6° Fahrenheit).
- Coral outplants were also more likely to survive in marine environments with variable temperatures, which might increase their resilience to temperature change, according to the authors.
- Ocean warming is projected to continue to increase, so choosing appropriate coral outplant sites based on temperature will help ensure the success of coral restoration projects, the study suggests.

Climate tipping point ecosystem collapses may come faster than thought: Studies
- Two recent studies shine a light on a relatively new field of study: the means by which climate tipping points can lead to ecosystem collapse, and how quickly such crashes might occur.
- The first study modeled a database of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and found that large ecosystems, while seeming more stable, can collapse disproportionately faster than small ones due to a domino effect by which interrelated habitats and species within a system can impact each other, causing a rapid cascading collapse.
- Some scientists praised the study for being pathfinding, while others faulted it for looking at too few ecosystems, and then making overlarge generalizations about the crashing of large systems, like the Amazon rainforest, a biome which was not included in the study database.
- A second study found that even small changes in an ecosystem can, via evolution, ripple outward, creating bigger and bigger alterations leading eventually to a system collapse. Scientists agree that much more research will be needed to refine collapse forecasts.

Only ‘A-list’ of coral reefs found to sustain ecosystems, livelihoods
- Most of tropical reefs are no longer able to both sustain coral reef ecosystems and the livelihoods of the people who depend on them, as human pressure and the impacts of climate change increase.
- That was the finding of a new study that looked at 1,800 coral reef sites spread throughout the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic ocean basins.
- Only 5% of those sites have plentiful fish stocks, high fish biodiversity and grazing, and well-preserved ecosystem functions — which are key marine ecological metrics.
- The study authors say location and the expected targets set by authorities implementing reef conservation are key to helping other sites achieve these multiple goals.

Ocean deoxygenation could be silently killing coral reefs, scientists say
- A new perspective paper argues that ocean deoxygenation is the biggest threat to coral reef survival, perhaps even more so than warming sea temperatures and acidification.
- Oxygen in the world’s oceans has decreased by 2% since the middle of the last century, due largely to climate change, agricultural runoff and human waste.
- A growing body of work examines deoxygenation in the open ocean, but little research has been done on the effects of decreased oxygen on coastal coral reefs systems in tropical environments, and this paper begins filling that gap.
- The lead author and his colleagues are currently collecting data off the coast of Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef to understand the effects of deoxygenation on the surrounding reefs.

Great Barrier Reef suffers biggest bleaching event yet
- Australia’s Great Barrier Reef just experienced its third major bleaching event in the past five years, which has caused severe and widespread damage.
- The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) recorded its highest ever sea temperature this past February, which triggered the bleaching.
- The southern part of the reef, which remained relatively untouched during large bleaching events in 2016 and 2017, suffered the most acute damage this time.
- While some corals are able to recover from bleaching, this process can take more than a decade, and scientists fear the Great Barrier Reef won’t recover.

2019’s top 10 ocean news stories (commentary)
- Marine scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, share their list of the top 10 ocean news stories from 2019.
- Hopeful developments included progress toward an international treaty to protect biodiversity on the high seas and a rebound in the western South Atlantic humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) to nearly its pre-whaling population size.
- Meanwhile, research documenting rapidly unfurling effects of climate change in the ocean painted a dire picture of the present and future ocean. These include accelerating sea level rise, more severe marine heatwaves and more frequent coral bleaching events.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Largest coral reef survey in French Polynesia offers hope
- Researchers who studied and mapped coral reefs in French Polynesia over a seven-month expedition in 2012-13, have found that French Polynesia had one of the world’s healthiest corals, and some of the highest diversity and density of reef fish on the planet at the time of the surveys.
- Not all areas were doing well — in places that had been severely damaged in the early 2000s by tropical cyclones and outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish, coral cover was extremely low.
- But the team observed new corals coming up at some of the damaged sites, suggesting that “there may be pockets of resilience in French Polynesia’s reefs.”

Protecting living corals could help defend the Great Barrier Reef from ocean acidification for decades
- For the first time, researchers have studied the impact of ocean acidification on coral reefs with a device that allows them to increase levels of carbon dioxide on living coral for months at a time.
- Corals exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide sustained more damage than those in aquarium experiments because fish, sponges, and other native organisms grazed on the fragile reefs.
- However, living corals were more resilient than scientists expected, providing a promising buffer against the impacts of climate change.

Sounds of healthy corals draw in fish to degraded reefs, study finds
- Playing sounds of healthy coral reefs can attract young fish to degraded, abandoned coral reefs in the northern Great Barrier Reef, a new study has found.
- Researchers placed underwater loudspeakers in patches of degraded coral reefs and compared them with two kinds of identical patches: some that had dummy loudspeakers that looked just like the functional loudspeakers, and some without any loudspeakers and sound.
- Coral patches that blared sounds of healthy corals had both greater abundance and variety of reef fish species compared to the other two control groups.
- Boosting fish populations using sounds of healthy coral reefs has the potential to help nurse degraded reefs back to health, researchers say.

Expedition finds new humpback breeding ground and sends first deep divers to Amazon Reef
- A number of marine species, from whales and dolphins to sea turtles and sharks, are known to migrate through the waters off the coast of French Guiana, the same biodiversity-rich waters that harbor the Amazon Reef, which was discovered in 2016.
- Scientists with the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) onboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza discovered and documented humpbacks as well as tropical whale species feeding and breeding in the area, which they say is a first.
- As part of the same expedition, the first dives down to the Amazon Reef were undertaken in order to document the reef ecosystem via high-resolution photography and collect biological samples.

Stunning new wrasse species underlines need to protect deeper-lying reefs
- A new species of wrasse discovered in mesophotic reefs off the coast of Zanzibar, Tanzania, underlines how little is known about marine environments.
- Deeper-lying reefs are just as threatened by climate change and other human impacts as shallow reefs and need greater protection.
- Mesophotic reefs could be an important and under-recognised source of fish larvae that supports coastal fisheries.

U.S. Virgin Islands bans coral-damaging sunscreens
- On June 25, lawmakers in the U.S. Virgin Islands voted to ban common chemical sunscreen ingredients that can damage coral reefs.
- With the ban, the U.S. Virgin Islands joins a handful of other jurisdictions around the world pioneering action on harmful sunscreens.
- It will be the first such ban to take effect in the United States, followed by Hawaii and Key West, Florida, and among the first internationally.

Altered fish communities persist long after reefs bleach, study finds
- In a new study, bleached reefs in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Seychelles had fewer predators like snappers and groupers and more plant-eating fish such as parrotfish and rabbitfish.
- The researchers found that this change in the composition of fish species persisted for more than a decade and a half after bleaching occurred in 1998.
- Scientists expect bleaching events to occur more frequently as a result of climate change, making it likely that these shifts in fish communities will become permanent.

Interest in protecting environment up since Pope’s 2015 encyclical
- New research into the usage of environmentally related search terms on Google suggests that interest in the environment has risen since Pope Francis released Laudato Si’ in 2015.
- Laudato Si’, a papal encyclical, argues that it is a moral imperative for humans to look after the environment.
- Researchers and scholars believe that the pope’s support for protecting the environment could ripple well beyond the 16 percent of the world’s population that is Catholic.

Models, maps, and citizen scientists working to save the Great Barrier Reef
- As global warming drives more events that impact coral reefs, managing the Great Barrier Reef’s resilience demands comprehensive and detailed mapping of the reef bed.
- Available surveys and maps with geographically referenced field data have been limited and fragmented.
- A diverse research team recently demonstrated a successful approach, applying statistics to image data to build predictive models, integrate diverse datasets on reef conditions, and provide a comprehensive map of the Reef that informs reef management decisions.

New map shows warming waters where coral reefs could be under threat
- A new interactive map can help you identify, in near-real-time, areas where the sea is warming up at alarming levels, increasing the risk of coral reef bleaching.
- The Coral Reefs at Risk of Bleaching Operations Dashboard, launched by Esri, a company that creates geographic information systems (GIS) and mapping software products, relies on data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch program.
- While the satellite data itself isn’t new, the way the data is displayed is more understandable for the general public, the tool’s developer says.
- The Esri map distills NOAA’s data and displays regions that are facing both high heat stress, increasing the risk of coral bleaching, such as those under Alert 1 and Alert 2 categories, as well as areas where the likelihood of coral bleaching is low or none at the moment, such as those under “Warning” and “Watch.”

’Unprecedented’ loss of biodiversity threatens humanity, report finds
- The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released a summary of far-reaching research on the threats to biodiversity on May 6.
- The findings are dire, indicating that around 1 million species of plants and animals face extinction.
- The full 1,500-page report, to be released later this year, raises concerns about the impacts of collapsing biodiversity on human well-being.

Guns, Corals and Steel: Are Nuclear Shipwrecks a Biodiversity Hotspot?
- My team and I used deep technical diving techniques to explore the coral biodiversity of warships sunk in the 1946 nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.
- Our surveys revealed that eight nuked warships harbored 27 percent of the world’s coral genera on their hulls, superstructures and armaments.
- At depths down to 55 meters (180 feet), these ships lie well below the 21st-century ocean warming danger zone.
- As a result, Bikini’s massive warships have become unexpected arks of coral biodiversity.

Global analysis of coral bleaching finds equatorial reefs less impacted by ocean warming
- As rising sea surface temperatures drive more frequent and more intense coral bleaching episodes around the world, global models have often predicted that few healthy coral reefs will remain in tropical oceans a century from now. But a new study finds that coral reefs at or near Earth’s equator are actually impacted less by ocean warming than other corals.
- The global coral survey that informed the study included more than 3,300 study sites in 81 countries and was performed by U.S.-based NGO Reef Check between 1998 and 2017.
- The researchers’ results show that coral bleaching was most common in areas that experienced anomalously high water temperatures most frequently. They also showed that coral bleaching was much less common in areas with high variability in sea surface temperatures, and that, over the last decade, coral bleaching has occurred at temperatures about 0.5 ° Celsius higher than in the previous decade.

‘Managed resilience’ not a successful strategy for conserving coral reefs, researchers find
- Coral reefs in protected areas that regulate fishing and pollution have declined to the same extent as reef systems in unprotected areas, according to recent research.
- The study, published in the Annual Review of Marine Science in January, determined that ocean warming is the primary cause of the global decline of reef-building corals.
- The researchers behind the study say their findings are consistent with a growing body of evidence that shows so-called “managed resilience” efforts, such as controls on fishing and pollution, don’t help coral reefs cope with the impacts of climate change.

New MPA established in Philippines includes community-led monitoring program
- A new marine protected area (MPA) has been founded in the Philippines within what are considered some of the most biologically diverse waters on Earth.
- The new MPA, which has been given the name Pirasan, encompasses more than 54 acres (about 22 hectares) of thriving coral reef habitat. The MPA was designed to protect this pristine reef system and, at the same time, boost an emerging local ecotourism industry.
- In addition to establishing the new protected area, the municipality of Tingloy has committed to a uniquely ambitious two-year program to monitor the reef’s health and empower local residents as stewards of the reef.

2018’s top 10 ocean news stories (commentary)
- Marine scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, share their list of the top 10 ocean news stories from 2018.
- Hopeful developments included international efforts to curb plastic pollution and negotiate an international treaty to protect the high seas.
- Meanwhile, research documenting unprecedented ocean warming, acidification, and oxygen decline spotlighted the real-time unfolding of climate change.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

New picture of coral reef health opens avenues for saving them
- New research has identified five potential phases, or “regimes,” of coral reef health, helping scientists and ecosystem managers better assess the condition of reefs.
- The study also revealed that certain transitions from one phase to another were more likely to result from human-induced changes to the ocean.
- The authors of the study say the research could help identify new opportunities to save and improve the health of reefs.

High sea levels thousands of years ago aided island formation
- A recent study has found that high sea levels were critical to the formation of coral reef islands in the Indian Ocean thousands of years ago.
- The findings suggest that rising sea levels driven by climate change might not destroy all coral reef islands.
- However, the authors caution that the same higher-energy waves that help build these islands could also destroy the infrastructure on them that humans depend on.
- They also say that, for coral reef island formation to occur, the reef must be healthy to begin with — something that risks being negated by rising water acidity and temperature, both the result of climate change.

Parrotfish, critical to reef health, now protected under Mexican law
- The government of Mexico added 10 species of parrotfish to its national registry of protected species in October.
- In a letter to the government, the environmental NGO AIDA argued that parrotfish and other herbivorous fish, whose numbers have been declining due to fishing, are necessary to maintain the health of coral reefs.
- AIDA has embarked on a three-year project to work with policymakers to protect herbivorous fish in Mexico and five other Latin American countries.

In Bali and beyond: An urgent focus on coral conservation (commentary)
- Millions of people depend on coral for their nutritional health and well-being.
- But we are damaging coral reefs today: with sediment that flows from rivers, caused by development and deforestation on land; with overfishing that upsets the delicate balance of species on reef; with chemicals, like cyanide, that are used to catch fish when there are few left to catch; with the rise in temperature caused by our continued dependence on fossil fuels.
- There is reason for hope, though. Some coral reefs around the world are stronger, more flexible, and more resilient than others to changes and threats in their environment. These reefs need to be protected.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Deep reefs were not spared by 2016 mass bleaching event on Great Barrier Reef
- New research finds that the mass bleaching event that led to the death of 30 percent of shallow-water corals on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 also had a substantial impact on deep reefs.
- Occurring at depths lower than 30 to 40 meters below the surface of the sea, deep coral reefs, also known as mesophotic reefs, were previously thought to be “ecological refuges from mass bleaching” thanks to cold water rising up from deeper in the ocean, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications this month.
- But researchers determined that deep reefs’ ability to offer “ecological refuge” to coral has some important limitations, and that both shallow and deep reefs are at risk of mass bleaching in the future.

The search for survivors in a post-nuclear reefscape
- The United States tested its largest thermonuclear bomb in 1954 over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, generating radioactive fallout downwind, including over remote Rongelap Atoll.
- We surveyed protected reefs of Rongelap and neighboring Ailinginae Atoll, finding extremely variable coral condition and widespread evidence of recent ocean warming.
- Variation in reef condition underscored an increasing need to assist diver-based surveys with improved satellite and aircraft imaging to assess the health of the coral reefs.
- Climate change mitigation is paramount to coral reef survival, as increasing ocean temperature could trump earlier nuclear radiation as a driver of reef degradation in the Marshall Islands.

Diverse family of algae could help corals survive warming seas
- Scientists have found that some algae that associate with corals are much more diverse and much older than previously thought.
- The origin of certain algae occurred at around the same time corals began building reefs on a grand scale around the world, the researchers showed.
- The diversity of these algae could boost corals’ resistance to higher ocean temperatures.

A new dimension to marine restoration: 3D printing coral reefs
- Australian group Reef Design Labs submerged a 3D-printed artificial coral reef earlier this month in the Maldives, with the hope that this advanced engineering method will help coral regeneration efforts.
- Their product, called Modular Artificial Reef Structure or MARS, enables the user to build and install an adjustable structure by hand rather than barge or crane.
- 3D printing cannot fix ocean acidification, bleaching, and other dire threats reefs face, but it can facilitate desperately needed research on reef restoration and resilience.

Predatory coral bring down jellyfish by working together
- For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that corals can work cooperatively to capture jellyfish.
- The team observed the bright orange Astroides calycularis, which lives on sea walls and caves in the Mediterranean Sea, snagging mauve stinger jellyfish that became trapped by ocean currents.
- Coral polyps first grab onto a jellyfish’s bell, and then others will begin ingesting the jellyfish’s arms in a process that takes just a few minutes.

Ocean acidity stifles coral-anchored communities
- Researchers working in the seas around Japan found that higher levels of carbon dioxide, like those found around volcanic vents in the ocean floor, diminish the diversity of corals and other lifeforms.
- The study took place at the convergence of marine temperate and subtropical climates.
- Their findings indicate that rising acidity could inhibit coral growth and reduce the number of species living in these ecosystems.

The Great Barrier Reef is losing its ability to bounce back from disturbances
- According to a study published in the journal Science Advances this month, the Great Barrier Reef is losing its ability to bounce back from disturbances like coral bleaching, crown of thorns starfish outbreaks, and cyclones.
- A team of researchers led by scientists at Australia’s University of Queensland (UQ) found that, during the 18-year period between 1992 to 2010, the coral recovery rate of reefs in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park declined by an average of 84 percent.
- This impaired recovery ability is likely due to the succession of acute disturbances the reef has experienced as well as the ongoing impacts of chronic pressures like poor water quality and climate change, researchers found. But the study’s authors also say that effective local management strategies could help restore the reef’s capacity to recover.

Global marine wilderness has dwindled to 13 percent, new map reveals
- New research examining the effects of 19 human stressors on the marine environment shows that only 13 percent of oceans can still be considered wilderness.
- Of the remaining wilderness, much of which is located in the high seas and at the poles, less than 5 percent falls under protection, and climate change and advances in technology could threaten it.
- The authors of the study call for international cooperation to protect the ocean’s wilderness areas, including a “Paris Agreement for the Ocean,” which they hope will be signed in 2020.

Plant communities roar back after rat removal from Pacific islands
- In a multi-year study, scientists found that tree seedlings were more than 5,000 percent more abundant after rats were eradicated from Palmyra Atoll, a group of 25 small islands in the Pacific Ocean.
- Invasive rats, brought by ships over the past few centuries, eat tree seedlings and vegetation, in addition to driving down seabird numbers.
- Managers eradicated the islands’ rats in 2011, and within a month, seedling densities had increased.

Bold initiative aims to protect coral reefs in the Dominican Republic
- Coral reefs of the northern Caribbean have undergone widespread change over the past century, driven by coastal development, pollution, over-fishing, the introduction of invasive species, and increasing ocean temperatures.
- A new and unique marine protected area, the Southeast Marine Sanctuary, has recently been declared, covering 786,300 hectares of reef environment, thus making it one of the largest protected areas in the Caribbean.
- The marine sanctuary will be divided into two zones, each to be co-managed by a diverse group of stakeholders organized into a nonprofit. The structure of its oversight – a collaboration among numerous stakeholders, from the federal government to local fishermen and from environmental groups to hotel associations – makes this new marine sanctuary remarkable.

Coral reefs thrive next to rat-free islands, new study finds
- A team of ecologists examined the impacts that invasive rats on tropical islands have on coral reef ecosystems.
- Because rats eat seabird eggs and young, they can decimate seabird populations.
- With fewer seabirds depositing their guano on islands, coral reef ecosystems near rat-infested islands can’t support as much life.
- The findings suggest that eradicating rats from tropical islands could be a straightforward way of bolstering the health of coral reefs.

Coral reef ‘oases’ that thrive amid threats give hope for conservation
- Scientists have identified 38 coral reef “oases” in the Pacific and western Atlantic that have either “escaped,” “resisted” or “rebounded” from declines in coral cover, even as neighboring reefs have not.
- While these success stories do not discount reports that many coral reefs across the world are under grave threat, they do offer examples of places where corals are doing better, or not as bad, as coral communities elsewhere, scientists say in a new study.
- The researchers are hopeful that the framework they’ve developed to identify the coral reef oases will be helpful in pinpointing oases across other ecosystems as well.

Super plane, satellites help map the Caribbean’s hidden coral reefs
- Satellites, aircraft and scuba divers are creating the first ever high-resolution map of coral reefs throughout the Caribbean region.
- Layers of data with 10-centimeter (4-inch) resolution will reveal the extent of damage from recent hurricanes and identify pockets of living coral to protect, as well as ailing coral that can be restored.
- The maps will be used to declare new marine protected areas, guide management plans and select areas for post-hurricane restoration.

A global coral reef monitoring system is coming soon
- Coral reef conservation efforts will soon get a major boost with a global monitoring system that will detect physical changes in coral cover at high resolution on a daily basis.
- The satellite-based system will enable researchers, policy makers, and environmentalists to track severe bleaching events, reef dynamiting, and coastal development in near-real time.
- The system will leverage Planet’s daily high resolution satellite imagery, running the data through cloud computing-based algorithms to map reefs and chart changes over time.

Australia to invest $379 million to protect the Great Barrier Reef
- Australia is set to invest more than 500 million Australian dollars ($379 million) in funding to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
- The investment will help restore water quality, tackle crown-of-thorns starfish attacks on coral, and fund research on coral resilience and adaptation.
- Some critics are, however, concerned that the funding aims to target strategies that have already being tried in the past, and have seen limited success.

Corals thrive on remotest islands in the Galápagos
- Our first reef community stop in the Reefscape project was the Galápagos Islands in December 2017.
- We found that ocean events such as El Niño can wipe out huge areas of reef, yet coral survival and regrowth remain evident.
- Our direct actions, be the destructive overfishing or constructive protection, have a huge impact on the future of coral reef ecosystems.
- One size does not fit all when it comes to coral reefs — even an archipelago hammered by coral-killing warm waters can harbor refugia for biodiversity.

Mesoamerican Reef gets improving bill of health
- The Healthy Reefs Initiative released its report card on the state of the Mesoamerican Reef. In the last decade, the grade has risen from poor to fair.
- The Mesoamerican Reef runs along about 1,000 kilometers of the coastlines of Mexico, Honduras, Belize and Guatemala.
- Fish populations have grown, as have the coral that make up the reef.
- But scientists were concerned to see an increase in macroalgae on the reef, which results from runoff and improperly treated sewage effluent.

Reef bleaching five times more frequent now than in the 1980s, study finds
- Severe coral bleaching is now happening about every six years, whereas in the 1980s, it took place every 25 to 30 years.
- Severe bleaching can kill the reef’s constituent corals.
- It takes at least a decade for a reef to recover from bleaching.
- Unless humans act to halt the rise of global temperatures, scientists predict that we’re headed for a time when bleaching might be an annual occurrence.

Reefscape: A global reef survey to build better satellites for coral conservation
- While science has fully documented only a small portion of reef species that occur around our planet, we know that human activities have taken an extensive toll on reef ecosystems worldwide.
- To gather a more comprehensive understanding of the condition of global reef ecosystems, we need a way to assess and monitor them on a large geographic scale.
- With our partners, we are planning a new satellite mission for global reef ecosystems, which will advance our ability not only to map reef extent, but also to monitor changes in coral reef health.
- This post is the first in a series that will chronicle field work ongoing for the next year to develop an understanding of reef characteristics that need to be monitored from Earth orbit.

Brazil / UK push offshore oil pact, a potential climate change disaster
- This month, as Brazil ratified the Paris Agreement, President Michel Temer and the Congress pressed forward with Provisional Measure 795, which must be approved by Friday or it will expire. PM 795 would offer billions in tax breaks to transnational oil companies seeking to tap into Brazil’s 176 billion barrel offshore oil reserve.
- In November, Britain reaffirmed its Paris Climate Agreement commitments, but diplomatic telegrams released by Greenpeace show the UK was in clandestine talks with Brazil in 2017 to smooth the way for offshore drilling, massive tax incentives and relaxation of environmental licenses for transnational oil and gas companies, including British Petroleum (BP).
- Brazil has also announced major auctions for oil and gas exploration blocks in its offshore pre-salt region. Ten rounds of bids have been authorized to occur between 2017 and 2019. The September and October auctions counted BP, Shell, Exxon, and Brazil’s Petrobras among the big winners.
- Exploitation of Brazil’s offshore oil reserves could release 74.8 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere, compromising the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. UPDATE: Late on Dec. 13 Brazil’s House passed PM 795 in its original form. Now the bill goes to Pres. Temer. Court challenges may follow.

Imperiled treasure: A coral reef called Varadero (commentary)
- Accidentally discovered in 2013, the mysterious Varadero coral reef is entirely hidden beneath a thick layer of brown and murky sediment from Colombia’s Magdalena River.
- A few feet below the surface, the sediment fades to reveal a vast underwater seascape of giant Caribbean corals called Orbicella. After the collapse of the staghorn and elkhorn corals in the 1980s, these boulder star corals have become the major ecosystem architects here, creating homes for snappers, parrotfish, groupers, and sea urchins.
- Taken together, our group has visited some of the world’s best reefs, but we’ve never seen one like Varadero.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Capturing the wonder and vulnerability of coral reefs in real-time: Q & A with the director of “Chasing Coral”
- Coral reefs support 25% of marine life, as well as protecting human food supplies and shorelines, but they are vulnerable to stress, including warming ocean temperatures.
- Over three years and 500 hours of underwater filming, a crew of divers, conservationists, and photographers sought to capture the lives of corals and the results of a global coral bleaching event in real time.
- The new film, “Chasing Coral,” is a finalist for Best Impact Film in the 2017 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival.

Audio: A rare earth mine in Madagascar triggers concerns for locals and lemurs
- Our first guest on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast is Eddie Carver, a Mongabay contributor based in Madagascar who recently wrote a report about a troubled company that is hoping to mine rare earth elements in a forest on the Ampasindava peninsula, a highly biodiverse region that is home to numerous endangered lemur species.
- Carver speaks about the risks of mining for rare earth elements, how the mine might impact wildlife like endangered lemur species found nowhere else on Earth, the complicated history of the company and its ownership of the mine, and how villagers in nearby communities have already been impacted by exploratory mining efforts.
- Our second guest is Jo Wood, an Environmental Water Project Officer in Victoria, Australia, who plays for us the calls of a number of indicator species whose presence helps her assess the success of her wetland rewetting work.

Critically endangered staghorn corals are benefiting from coral gardening in the Caribbean
- New research finds that “coral gardening,” which involves planting fragments of nursery-raised coral on reefs in the wild to replenish depleted coral colonies, is playing a key role in the restoration of staghorn coral reef systems in the Caribbean.
- A study published in the journal Coral Reefs in June looks at how successful restoration efforts have been at several sites in Florida and Puerto Rico over the first two years of a staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) gardening program.
- Researchers collected data on the survival and productivity of thousands of individual A. cervicornis colonies within six different geographical regions in order to develop benchmarks that can be used to assess coral reef restoration efforts and their impacts on the overall ecosystem.

Audio: Activists determined to protect newly discovered Amazon Reef from oil drilling
- John talks about the discovery of the reef, what it’s like to be one of a few people on Earth who have ever seen it with their own eyes, and what the opposition to plans to drill for oil near the reef will look like should the plans move forward.
- We also welcome two staffers from Mongabay Latin America to the show: MariaIsabel Torres and Romi Castagnino.
- Mongabay LatAm just celebrated its one-year anniversary recently, so we wanted to take the chance to speak with MariaIsabel and Romi about what it’s like covering the environment in Latin America, what some of the site’s biggest successes are to date, and what we can expect from Mongabay LatAm in the future.

Climate change-induced bleaching decimating Great Barrier Reef
- In 2016, scientists reported the largest die-off ever on the Great Barrier Reef.
- Some 70,000 people depend on the Great Barrier Reef for employment in the tourism industry, and it’s worth about $5 billion annually.
- The study’s authors report that repeated exposure to higher-than-normal sea temperatures submarines the corals’ chances at recovery. Even corals that survive don’t appear to be more tolerant of extreme temperatures, and high water quality – important for coral regrowth – doesn’t seem to offer much protection against bleaching.

First-ever underwater photos of newly discovered Amazon Reef have surfaced
- Extending from French Guiana to Maranhão State in northern Brazil, the Amazon Reef is a 9500-square-kilometer (or nearly 3,700-square-mile) system of corals, sponges, and rhodoliths (a colorful marine algae that resembles coral) located where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean — a region currently threatened by oil exploration activities.
- When the reef was discovered in April 2016, Fabiano Thompson of Brazil’s Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, who was part of the team of scientists who made the discovery, told Mongabay that “The oceanographic conditions (biogeochemistry and microbiology) of this system are unique, not found in other places of the planet.”
- The mouth of the Amazon River basin also provides valuable habitat for a range of species, including the American manatee, the yellow-spotted Amazon river turtle, dolphins, and giant river otters, which are listed as Endangered on the IUCN’s Red List.

Top climate stories to watch in 2017
- Renewable energy use has never been higher — but on the other hand, 2016 brought with it news of record fossil fuel consumption, as well.
- Meanwhile, the Paris Climate Agreement went into force on November 4, far sooner than anyone ever expected, signaling a new era of international climate action — but just a few days later, the U.S., the second-largest emitter in the world, elected a new president who has called global warming a hoax and pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement as soon as possible.
- Here, in no particular order, are some of the top stories to keep an eye on in the new year.

2016’s top 10 developments for the world’s oceans
- Marine scientists from University of California, Santa Barbara share their top 10 list of game changing developments for the ocean in 2016.
- Massive new ocean protected areas and transformative policies to fight illegal fishing brought hope.
- The world’s worst coral bleaching event, record sea ice lows, and coastal flooding revealed the ever-growing influence of climate change.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Great Barrier Reef suffered worst coral die-off on record in 2016: new study
- On some reefs in the northern part of the Great Barrier, nearly all corals have died.
- But the central and southern part of the Great Barrier seem to have fared better, suffering “minor” damage compared to the northern region.
- Scientists expect that it will take at least 10-15 years for corals in the northern region to regrow, but a fourth bleaching event could strike the region before the reefs have had the chance to recover completely.

Rising sea levels could actually help coral reefs survive global warming: Study
- Rising levels of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere will cause significant changes to ocean temperatures and chemistry over the next 100 years, thereby increasing the frequency and severity of mass bleaching and other stresses on coral reefs and reef systems, scientists say.
- The University of Western Australia’s Ryan Lowe led a team of researchers who studied a reef system off the coast of northwestern Australia, as well as other reef systems across the globe, in order to develop a new model for predicting how rapid sea level rise will impact daily water temperature extremes within these shallow reefs over the next century.
- The researchers found that an atmospheric exchange of surface heat drives the greatest temperature fluctuations in reefs located in shallow, low-tide waters. That means that rising sea levels could reduce local reef water temperatures by a substantial amount, helping protect them from becoming stressed and bleaching as a consequence.

Watch how corals ‘violently’ bleach as sea temperatures rise
- Researchers placed individuals of the solitary coral, Heliofungia actiniformis, into a 10-litre aquatic tank and began heating the water up.
- Within the first two hours of raising the water temperature, the H. actiniformis began expelling Symbiodinium, the tiny algae that lives inside its tissues, in a process called pulsed inflation.
- The intensity and magnitude of the expansion-contraction pulses increased with time, with the coral inflating to up to 340 percent of its original state.

Climate change pledges not nearly enough to save tropical ecosystems
- Last December, 178 nations pledged to cut their carbon emissions enough to keep global temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius — with an aspirational goal of 1.5 degrees. A study in the journal Nature has found that pledges so far are insufficient to keep the world from blasting past the 2 degree mark, even as scientists meet this week in Geneva to consider plans to reach the goal.
- While scientists have long known that extreme temperature rises in the Arctic presaged ecosystem devastation there, they believed that less extreme temperature rises in the tropics might have smaller, less serious impacts on biodiversity.
- Recent findings, however, show that major tropical ecosystems, ranging from coral reefs and mangroves to cloud forests and rainforests are already seriously threatened by climate change with likely dangerous repercussions for wildlife.
- While nations work to commit to, and achieve, their Paris commitments, scientists say it is vital that tropical countries continue to protect large core tracts of wild land linked by wild corridors in order to conserve maximum biodiversity — allowing for free, unhampered movement of species as climate change unfolds.

Widespread coral bleaching event to hit US hard for third straight year
- Coral reefs in Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Florida Keys, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico are at greatest risk of mass bleaching, according to NOAA.
- Once La Nina conditions set in, coral reefs in the Pacific island nations of Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia have a 90 percent likelihood of widespread coral bleaching, NOAA predicts.
- The ongoing bleaching event has already extensively damaged or injured coral reefs in the U.S, researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia said.

Top 10 stories you should be aware of this World Oceans Day, according to Carl Safina
- Safina’s latest book, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, came out in 2015, and is due for a paperback release on July 12 via Picador.
- “It’s about the thought and emotional range of non-human animals, but including humans,” Safina told Mongabay.
- Safina’s list of stand-out stories includes several oceans and marine life stories, a couple that just show how similar to humans animals can really be, and a few that will interest anyone concerned with the plight of the natural world.

Saving reef fish from the impacts of a hit film
- The trade in marine fish for home aquariums is a major cause of coral reef fish decline, and in the years since Finding Nemo was released, clownfish populations on coral reefs have been declining sharply as more and more people want a “Nemo” of their own.
- More than one million clownfish are taken from reefs every year and sold to private individuals for their home aquariums.
- Researchers from the University of Queensland and Flinders University have created The Saving Nemo Conservation Fund to protect popular marine species that are often captured on reefs and sold in pet shops through education initiatives and captive breeding programs.

Biodiversity makes reef fish more resilient in the face of climate change, research confirms
- After analyzing data from more than 4,500 fish surveys of reefs around the world to compare the effects of biodiversity and other environmental factors on global reef fish biomass, the authors of the study found that biodiversity was one of the strongest predictors of fish biomass, second only to mean sea-surface temperature.
- Temperature actually has a more complex relationship with fish biomass — while warmer ocean temperatures tend to boost fish biomass, wider temperature fluctuations have the exact opposite effect.
- Biodiversity, on the other hand, only makes fish communities more resilient against the changing climate, the researchers found. The researchers found biodiversity can even help buffer against temperature swings.

Scientists just discovered an Amazon reef system in an area targeted for oil exploration
- Extending from the southern tip of French Guiana to the Maranhão State of Brazil, the extensive sponge and coral reef system is 1,000-km (600-mile) long and unlike any tropical reef that has ever been studied.
- The scientists who made the discovery have published a study in the journal Science detailing their findings.
- The authors say that the unique reef system could provide insights into how coral ecosystems might respond to accelerating global warming.

Last best place on earth: Who will save the Caribbean’s great coral reef?
- Lighthouse Reef in Belize is part of the Caribbean Sea’s Mesoamerican reef system, the world’s second largest. It is stubbornly resilient, and one of the last best places in the western Atlantic in need of total preservation. But virtually no action is happening to conserve it.
- To save it, the entire reef needs to be a “no take zone,” allowing minimal livelihood fishing by local families, but banning the Guatemalan fishermen who the government of Belize has licensed to legally fish for sharks — exported for shark fin soup to China, at $100 per bowl.
- The only thing that can save this World Heritage site is full protection: a ban on all large-scale commercial fishing, and the encouragement of eco-tourism to support the local people economically and to generate the funds needed for enforcement and high-tech monitoring.
- Belize cannot, and will not likely, do the job alone. If this aquatic treasure is to be preserved for the future, the international conservation community will need to awaken to its likely loss, and rally vigorously to the cause of permanently protecting it — now, before it is gone.

The longest global coral bleaching event in history isn’t over yet
- The current global coral bleaching event began in the Pacific Ocean in the middle of 2014.
- By October 2015, as the current El Niño event was just beginning to gain strength, scientists officially declared the third global bleaching event in history was underway.
- Research due to be presented today at the 2016 Ocean Sciences Meeting in New Orleans, LA found that this bleaching event has persisted for 20 months and could reach into next year.

Massive bleaching event puts world’s coral reefs at risk
- This is the third global coral bleaching event in recorded history.
- Coral reefs in the U.S. are among the worst hit, according to the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
- By end of 2015, around 4,633 square miles of coral reefs could die due to the current bleaching event, NOAA estimates.

Good news! Some corals show surprising resilience to ocean acidification
- Increased ocean acidity does not slow down growth of the yellow finger corals around Heron Island, researchers have found.
- This adaptation is most likely a response to the extreme, but natural, fluctuations in temperature and pH that commonly occur in seawater around Heron Island, the authors write.
- This finding is a “step closer to help us understand how corals will cope in future oceans where pH is likely to drop due to human induced rising carbon dioxide levels,” researchers say.

Human impacts are ‘decoupling’ coral reef ecosystems

Researchers argue that predictability of ecosystem could be sign of health A largely pristine coral reef in the remote Pacific on an island largely unpopulated by humans. Photo by: Brian J. Zgliczynski. There is a growing consensus among scientists of all stripes that we have entered the age of the Anthropocene, or the epoch of […]
Corals thriving despite acidified conditions in remote Pacific bay

Palau’s Rock Islands. Courtesy of Google Earth. Scientists have discovered a small island bay in the Pacific which could serve as a peephole into the future of the ocean. Palau’s Rock Island Bay harbors a naturally occurring anomaly – its water is acidified as much as scientists expect the entire ocean to be by 2100 […]
Protected forests linked to healthy coral reefs in Fiji

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 […]
Scientists discover a new coral in the French Polynesia

With humans scattered throughout the globe, it is hard to imagine lands still unexplored or species undocumented. Yet, on the remote French Polynesian Gambier Islands a new coral reef species has been found thriving in underwater lagoons. Echinophyllia tarae was discovered by marine biologist Francesca Benzoni and the research crew members of the Tara Oceans […]
Sea and storm: coastal habitats offer strongest defense

Surging storms and rising seas threaten millions of U.S. residents and billions of dollars in property along coastlines. The nation’s strongest defense, according to a new study by scientists with the Natural Capital Project at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, comes from natural coastal habitats. Of the 25 most densely populated counties in […]
Governments should respond to ocean acidification ‘as urgently as they do to national security threats’

The oceans are more acidic now than they have been for at least 300m years, due to carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, and a mass extinction of key species may already be almost inevitable as a result, leading marine scientists warned on Thursday. An international audit of the health of the oceans has […]
Mesoamerican Reef needs more local support, says report

From massive hotel development through the agriculture industry, humans are destroying the second largest barrier reef in the world: the Mesoamerican Reef. Although global climate change and its effects on reefs via warming and acidification of coastal waters have made recent headlines, local human activities may destroy certain ecosystems before climate change has a chance […]
Google Earth presents fish-eye view of coral reefs

You can now visit up-close and personal some of the world’s most imperiled ecosystems on Google Earth: coral reefs. The Google team is working with scientists to provide 360 degree panoramas, similar to Google street-view, to give armchair ecologists a chance to experience the most biodiverse ecosystems under the waves. “Only 1% of humanity has […]
Pacific islanders are the ‘victims of industrial countries unable to control their carbon dioxide emissions’

With islands and atolls scattered across the ocean, the small Pacific island states are among those most exposed to the effects of global warming: increasing acidity and rising sea level, more frequent natural disasters and damage to coral reefs. These micro-states, home to about 10 million people, are already paying for the environmental irresponsibility of […]
Typhoon Bopha decimated coral reefs

Three weeks after Typhoon Bopha: all the Acropora coral species are dead and covered in algae and sediment. Photo courtesy of ESI. When Typhoon Bopha, also known as Pablo, ran ashore on Mindanao, it was the largest tropical storm it ever hit the Philippine island. In its wake the massive superstorm left over 1,000 people […]
Threatened Galapagos coral may predict the future of reefs worldwide

Coral surveying in a cloud of fish. Photo by: Joshua Feingold. The Galapagos Islands have been famous for a century and a half, but even Charles Darwin thought the archipelago’s list of living wonders didn’t include coral reefs. It took until the 1970s before scientists realized the islands did in fact have coral, but in […]
Great Barrier Reef loses half its coral in less than 30 years

Outbreaks of the coral eating crown of thorns starfish have been responsible for 42 percent of the decline in coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef between 1985 and 2012. Photo by: Katharina Fabricius, Australian Institute of Marine Science. The Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its coral cover in the last 27 years, […]
Coral reefs in Caribbean on life support

Fan coral off the coast of Belize. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Only 8 percent of the Caribbean’s reefs today retain coral, according to a new report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). With input and data from 36 scientists, the report paints a bleak picture of coral decline across the region, […]
Coral calcification rates fall 44% on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

Calcification rates by reef-building coral communities on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have slowed by nearly half over the past 40 years, a sign that the world’s coral reefs are facing a grave range of threats, reports a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences. The international team of researchers, led by […]
Strangest island in the Caribbean may be a sanctuary for critically endangered coral

A ship approaches the Caribbean Island of Navassa. Photo by: Eddie Gonzalez. Don’t feel bad if you‘ve never heard of Navassa Island, even though it’s actually part of the U.S. according to the Guano Islands Act of 1856. This uninhabited speck between Haiti and Jamaica, barely bigger than New York City’s Central Park, has a […]
2,600 scientists: climate change killing the world’s coral reefs

Purple coral off the coast of Maui, Hawaii. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In an unprecedented show of concern, 2,600 (and rising) of the world’s top marine scientists have released a Consensus Statement on Climate Change and Coral Reefs that raises alarm bells about the state of the world’s reefs as they are pummeled by […]
Featured video: Google Earth highlights imperiled coral reefs around the world
A new video by Google Earth and the World Resources Institute (WRI) highlights the world’s many endangered coral reefs. A part of the WRI’s Reefs at Risk program, the video highlights regional and global threats to the oceans’ most biodiverse ecosystem. According to the WRI, a stunning 75 percent of the world’s reefs are currently […]
Researchers challenge idea that marine reserves promote coral recovery

Fleshy whorls of thick brown algae blanket the once-vibrant corals in Glover’s Reef, Belize. According to a controversial study published August 14 in the journal Coral Reefs, a decade of marine reserve protection has failed to help these damaged Caribbean corals recover. Healthy reefs depend on herbivorous parrotfishes to gobble up vast algal blooms. When […]
Unanimous agreement among scientists: Earth to suffer major loss in species

The thylacine, the dodo, the great auk, the passenger pigeon, the golden toad: these species have become symbols of extinction. But they are only the tip of the recent extinction crisis, and according to a survey of 583 conservation scientists, they are only the beginning. In a new survey in Conservation Biology, 99.5 percent of […]
Coral reef biodiversity may be vastly underestimated

Researchers with the Smithsonian have catalogued almost as many crab species on tropical coral reef bits measuring just 20.6 square feet (6.3 square meters) as in all of Europe’s seas, finds a new paper in PLoS ONE. The team used DNA barcoding to quickly identify a total of 525 crustaceans (including 168 crab species) from […]
Ocean prognosis: mass extinction

A new report finds that the oceans are facing a mass extinction. One day many of the world’s marine species may only be found in aquariums, if at all, such as this green sea anemone in the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Multiple and converging human impacts on the world’s oceans are […]
Coral crisis: 75% of the world’s coral reefs in danger

Marine scientists have been warning for years that coral reefs, the most biodiverse ecosystems in the ocean, are facing grave peril. But a new comprehensive analysis by the World Resources Institute (WRI) along with twenty-five partners ups the ante, finding that 75% of the world’s coral reefs are threatened by local and global impacts, including […]
Beyond gloom: solutions to the global coral reef decline

The world’s coral reefs are in trouble. Due to a variety of factors—including ocean acidification, warming temperatures from climate change, overfishing, and pollution—coral cover has decline by approximately 125,000 square kilometers in the past 50 or so years. This has caused some marine biologists, like Charlie Veron, Former Chief Scientist of the Australian Institute of […]
Carbon emissions hurting coral recruitment

While research has shown that ocean acidification from rising CO2 levels in the ocean imperils the growth and survival mature coral reefs, a new study has found that it may also negatively impact burgeoning corals, by significantly lowering the success of coral recruitment. A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) […]
Majority of Americans confused on climate change basics

Most Americans don’t understand the basics of climate change, according to a new poll by researchers with Yale. The poll found that over half of Americans deserve an ‘F’ on basic understanding of climate science and climate change, while only 1% would receive an ‘A’. While 63% of Americans say that the globe is warming, […]
Losing nature’s medicine cabinet
- In all the discussions of saving the world’s biodiversity from extinction, one point is often and surprisingly forgotten: the importance of the world’s species in providing humankind with a multitude of life-saving medicines so far, as well as the certainty that more vital medications are out there if only we save the unheralded animals and plants that contain cures unknown.
- Already, species have provided humankind everything from quinine to aspirin, from morphine to numerous cancer and HIV-fighting drugs. “As the ethnobotanist Dr. Mark Plotkin commented, the history of medicine can be written in terms of its reliance on and utilization of natural products,” physician Christopher Herndon told mongabay.com.
- Herndon is co-author of a recent paper in the journal Biotropica, which calls for policy-makers and the public to recognize how biodiversity underpins not only ecosystems, but medicine.

Colossal coral bleaching kills up to 95 percent of corals in the Philippines

It is one of the most worrisome observations: fast massive death of coral reefs. A severe wide-scale bleaching occurred in the Philippines leaving 95 percent of the corals dead. The bleaching happened as the result of the 2009-2010 El Niño, with the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia waters experiencing significant thermal increase especially since the […]
Massive coral bleaching in Indonesia

A large-scale bleaching event due to high ocean temperatures appears to be underway off the coast of Sumatra, an Indonesian island, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). An initial survey by the conservation group’s “Rapid Response Unit” of marine biologists found that 60 percent of corals were bleached. Follow up assessments “revealed one of the […]
The biology and conservation of declining coral reefs, an interview with Kristian Teleki

Kristian Teleki, Vice President for Science Initiatives for SeaWeb and former Director of the International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN), spoke with Laurel Neme on her “The WildLife” radio show and podcast about the biology of corals, threats to coral reefs, and what can be done to halt their decline. This interview originally aired May […]
Amazing reefs: how corals ‘hear’, an interview with Steve Simpson

Steve Simpson, Senior Researcher at the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, spoke with Laurel Neme on her “The WildLife” radio show and podcast about ocean sounds and how reef fish and corals use these cues to find their way home. This interview originally aired June 28, 2010. The interview was transcribed by Ed […]
World failing on every environmental issue: an op-ed for Earth Day

The biodiversity crisis, the climate crisis, the deforestation crisis: we are living in an age when environmental issues have moved from regional problems to global ones. A generation or two before ours and one might speak of saving the beauty of Northern California; conserving a single species—say the white rhino—from extinction; or preserving an ecological […]
Healthy coral reefs produce clouds and precipitation

Climate change threatens coral reefs and precipitation along coasts. Twenty years of research has led Dr. Graham Jones of Australia’s Southern Cross University to discover a startling connection between coral reefs and coastal precipitation. According to Jones, a substance produced by thriving coral reefs seed clouds leading to precipitation in a long-standing natural process that […]
If protected coral reefs can recover from global warming damage

A study in the Caribbean has found that coral reefs can recover from global warming impacts, such as coral bleaching, if protected from fishing. Marine biologists have long been worried that coral reefs affected by climate change may be beyond recovery, however the new study published in PLoS ONE shows that alleviating another threat, overfishing, […]
Climate change causing irreversible acidification in world’s oceans

A new study from the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity has synthesized over 300 reports on ocean acidification caused by climate change. The report finds that increasing acidification will lead to irreversible damage in the world’s oceans, creating a less biodiverse marine environment. Released today the report determines that the threat to marine […]
Photos: ten beloved species threatened by global warming

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has released a list of ten species that are likely to be among the hardest hit by climate change, including beloved species such as the leatherback sea turtle, the koala, the emperor penguin, the clownfish, and the beluga whale. The timing of the list coincides with […]
Extinctions on the rise in the Galapagos: fishing and global warming devastating islands’ species

We may never see again the Galapagos black-spotted damselfish, the beautiful 24-rayed sunstar, or the Galapagos stringweed. These species from Galapagos waters may all very well be extinct. Other species are on the brink, such as the Galapagos penguin and the Floreana cup coral. A new report in Global Change Biology reveals that in just […]
Not just the polar bear: ten American species that are feeling the heat from global warming

A new report, America’s Hottest Species, highlights a variety of American wildlife that are currently threatened by climate change from a small bird to a coral reef to the world’s largest marine turtle. “Global warming is like a bulldozer shoving species, already on the brink of extinction, perilously closer to the edge of existence,” said […]
Zoos call for deeper emission cuts to save life on Earth

To save species around the world zoos say deeper emission cuts are needed than governments are currently proposing. Over 200 zoos worldwide have signed a petition calling on governments to set the target of atmospheric carbon below 350 parts per million (ppm) far lower than most government targets. The signatories, each a member of the […]
Investing in conservation could save global economy trillions of dollars annually

By investing billions in conserving natural areas now, governments could save trillions every year in ecosystem services, such as natural carbon sinks to fight climate change, according to a European report The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). As reported by Reuters, a one time investment of 45 billion dollars in protected areas the global […]
Loss of Great Barrier Reef due to global warming would cost Australia $37.7 billion
A recent study reports that the loss of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef due to climate change poses a catastrophe not just for marine life, but would cost $37.7 billion during the next century. Bleaching caused by ocean acidification and increases in salinity and water temperature may destroy the reef in mere decades. Dr. John Schubert, […]
New report predicts dire consequences for every U.S. region from global warming

Sobering report is the most comprehensive to date. Government officials and scientists released a 196 page report detailing the impact of global warming on the U.S. yesterday. The study, commissioned in 2007 during the Bush Administration, found that every region of the U.S. faces large-scale consequences due to climate change, including higher temperatures, increased droughts, […]
Coral reef loss in Caribbean leads to ongoing fish declines

Analyzing 48 surveys of Caribbean fish populations over fifty years, from 1955-2007, a new meta-study has found that fish populations in the famously clear waters began to drop in the mid-90s, leading to a consistent decline that hasn’t stopped. The study published in Current Biology discovered a region-wide decline of about 3-6 percent per year […]
Seven new species of deep sea coral discovered

Indonesian coral reef recovering after devastating tsunami and years of destructive fishing

“Baby corals” appear in wake of tsunami, cyanide, and dynamite
Ocean acidification is killing the Great Barrier Reef

U.S. pledges $40M toward coral reef conservation.

U.S. pledges $40M toward coral reef conservation U.S. pledges $40M toward coral reef conservation mongabay.com October 23, 2008
52% of amphibians, 35% of birds at risk from climate change

52% of amphibians, 35% of birds at risk from climate change 52% of amphibians, 35% of birds at risk from climate change mongabay.com October 8, 2008
‘Safe’ CO2 level may destroy the fishing industry, wreck reefs
‘Safe’ CO2 level may destroy the fishing industry, wreck reefs ‘Safe’ CO2 level may destroy the fishing industry, wreck reefs mongabay.com September 23, 2008
Saving oceans from acidification requires addressing climate policy

Saving oceans from acidification requires addressing climate policy Saving oceans from acidification requires addressing climate policy mongabay.com August 27, 2008 Ocean acidification driven by rising carbon dioxide emissions is a great threat to marine ecosystems and needs be addressed through climate policy and conservation measures, said top marine scientists meeting in Hawaii. Members of the […]
The long-ignored ocean emergency and what can be done to address it

This year has been full of bad news regarding marine ecosystems: one-third of coral species threatened with extinction, dead-zones spread to 415 sites, half of U.S. reefs in fair or bad condition, increase in ocean acidification, tuna and shark populations collapsing, and only four percent of ocean considered pristine. Jeremy Jackson, director of the Scripps […]
Climate change will increase the erosion of coral reefs

More bad news for coral reefs: climate change will increase chance of erosion Climate change will increase the erosion of coral reefs Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com July 28, 2008 Coral reefs are particularly susceptible to climate change. Warming waters have been shown to bleach coral, killing off symbiotic algae that provide them with sustenance, and often […]
Coral susceptibility to bleaching due to small differences in symbiotic relationship

Coral susceptibility to bleaching due to small differences in symbiotic relationship Coral susceptibility to bleaching due to small differences in symbiotic relationship Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com July 22, 2008 Coral reefs are now considered the second most threatened group of animals in the world, with nearly one-third of corals listed as endangered (amphibians retain the dubious […]
Moving species may be only way to save them from climate change

Moving species may be only way to save them from climate change Moving species may be only way to save them from climate change Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com July 17, 2008 Desperate times call for desperate measures, according to a new paper in Science. Conservation scientists from the US, the UK, and Australia are calling for […]
1/3 of corals face extinction

1/3 of corals face extinction 1/3 of corals face extinction mongabay.com July 10, 2008 Nearly one-third of reef-building corals are vulnerable to extinction, according to an assessment of 845 species of coral. Rising temperatures, increased incidence of disease, and human disturbance are driving the trend. Assessing the conservation status of corals from around the world […]
U.S. coral reefs in trouble

U.S. coral reefs in trouble U.S. coral reefs in trouble mongabay.com July 7, 2008 Related: 1/3 of corals face extinction Nearly half of U.S. coral reefs are in “poor” or “fair” condition according to a new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The report, The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the […]
Good news for reefs: giant coral structure found off Brazil

Rare good news for besieged corals: giant reef found off Brazil Good news for reefs: giant coral structure found off Brazil mongabay.com July 8, 2008 Amid a series of dire reports on the status of coral reefs, scientists announced the discovery of a reef off the southern coast of Brazil’s Bahia state that doubles the […]
CO2 emissions could doom fishing industry

CO2 emissions could doom fishing industry CO2 emissions could doom fishing industry mongabay.com July 3, 2008 Aside from warming climate, rising carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to ocean acidification, threatening sea live, warn researchers writing in the journal Science. This trend makes it all the more important to reduce emissions, argue the authors. The oceans […]
Microbes could be the key to coral death

Microbes could be the key to coral death Microbes could be the key to coral death Society for General Microbiology April 2, 2008 Coral reefs could be dying out because of changes to the microbes that live in them just as much as from the direct rise in temperature caused by global warming, according to […]
Fast-growing coral may help reefs survive global warming

Fast-growing coral may help reefs survive global warming Fast-growing coral may help reefs survive global warming mongabay.com March 13, 2008 Two fast-growing coral species may hold the key to Caribbean reefs surviving global warming, report researchers writing in the journal Science. Ken Johnson of the Natural History Museum in London and colleagues found that staghorn […]
Expedition finds inverted pyramid where sharks dominate marine ecology

Expedition finds inverted pyramid where sharks dominate marine ecology Expedition finds inverted pyramid where sharks dominate marine ecology mongabay.com February 25, 2008 A survey of a remote Pacific archipelago turned up pristine coral reefs that could offer a “baseline” for measuring the human impact on reefs worldwide, report researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography […]
Widespread butterflyfish may go extinct due to global warming, pollution

Widespread butterflyfish may go extinct due to global warming, pollution Widespread butterflyfish may go extinct due to global warming, pollution mongabay.com February 25, 2008 The Chevroned Butterflyfish, a colorful fish found in tropical oceans around the world, faces extinction due to overexploitation, pollution and climate change, report researchers writing in the journal Behavioural Ecology and […]
Why are oceans at risk from global warming?

Why are oceans at risk from global warming? Why are oceans at risk from global warming? mongabay.com February 17, 2008 Climate change is putting the world’s oceans at risk by increasing the temperature and acidity of seawater, and altering atmospheric and oceanic circulation, warned a panel of scientists this week at the American Association for […]
Natural ocean thermostat may protect some coral reefs

Natural ocean thermostat may protect some coral reefs Natural ocean thermostat may protect some coral reefs National Center for Atmospheric Research February 7, 2008 Natural processes may prevent oceans from warming beyond a certain point, helping protect some coral reefs from the impacts of climate change, new research finds. The study provides evidence that an […]
Groups call for doubling of reef protection for International Year of the Reef

Groups call for doubling of reef protection for International Year of the Reef Groups call for doubling of reef protection for International Year of the Reef mongabay.com January 25, 2008 Thursday 17 countries and 30 organization launched the International Year of the Reef, a campaign to protect coral reefs increasingly threatened by climate change, pollution, […]
Global warming will degrade 98% of coral reefs by 2050

Global warming will degrade 98% of coral reefs by 2050 Global warming will degrade 98% of coral reefs by 2050 mongabay.com December 13, 2007 Ocean acidification caused by human-induced carbon dioxide emissions could dramatically alter the planet’s coral reefs and marine food chains, warns research published in the December 14 issue of Science and presented […]
Coral reefs with seasonal temperatures may survive climate change

Coral reefs with seasonal temperatures may survive climate change Coral reefs with seasonal temperatures may survive climate change mongabay.com November 29, 2007 Coral reefs with seasonal temperatures are more likely to survive rising ocean temperatures associated with global warming, reports a new study published in the journal Ecological Monographs. Reefs found in environments with stable […]
Environmentalists may use Endangered Species Act to pressure gov’t on global warming

Environmentalists may use Endangered Species Act to pressure gov’t on global warming Environmentalists may use Endangered Species Act to pressure gov’t on global warming mongabay.com September 7, 2007 The addition of elkhorn and staghorn corals to the Endangered Species Act due to threats from climbing ocean temperatures, may be environmentalists’ best weapon for levering the […]
“Weird” algae key to survival of coral reefs

“Weird” algae key to survival of coral reefs “Weird” algae key to survival of coral reefs ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies August 31, 2007 A team of coral researchers has taken a major stride towards revealing the workings of the mysterious âengine’ that drives Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and corals the world […]
Coral reefs declining faster than rainforests

Coral reefs declining faster than rainforests Coral cover declines by 50% since 1980 Coral reefs declining faster than rainforests mongabay.com August 8, 2007 Coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean are dying faster than previously thought due to costal development, climate change, and disease, reports a study published Wednesday in the online journal PLoS One. Nearly […]
Hurricanes can help coral reefs

Hurricanes can help coral reefs Hurricanes can help coral reefs mongabay.com July 17, 2007 A close call with a hurricane can be beneficial to a stressed coral reef, reports a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The new research shows that hurricanes, which can form when surface temperatures reach about […]
Coral diseases largely result from human activities

Coral diseases largely result from human activities Coral diseases largely result from human activities mongabay.com May 17, 2007 The apparent increase in infectious disease among coral is likely the result of environmental change and, as such, researchers should focus on understanding the relationship between coral diseases and environmental changes, rather than the diseases themselves, argues […]
Global warming is killing coral reefs

Global warming is killing coral reefs Global warming is killing coral reefs Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com May 7, 2007 A new study provides further evidence that climate change is adversely affecting coral reefs. While previous studies have linked higher ocean temperatures to coral bleaching events, the new research, published in PLoS Biology, found that climate […]
Some corals may survive acidification caused by rising CO2 levels

Some corals may survive acidification caused by rising CO2 Some corals may survive acidification caused by rising CO2 levels mongabay.com March 29, 2007 Several studies have shown that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are acidifying the world’s oceans. This is significant for coral reefs because acidification strips carbonate ions from seawater, making it more difficult […]
Carbon dioxide levels threaten oceans regardless of global warming

Carbon dioxide levels threaten oceans regardless of global warming Carbon dioxide levels threaten oceans regardless of global warming Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com March 8, 2007 Rising levels of carbon dioxide will have wide-ranging impacts on the world’s oceans regardless of climate change, reports a study published in the March 9, 2007, issue of the journal […]
Some corals can adapt to ocean acidification

Some corals can adapt to ocean acidification Some corals can adapt to ocean acidification mongabay.com July 6, 2006 But the research provides further evidence that corals are extremely sensitive to rapid environmental change and will be negatively affected by increased carbon dioxide levels in the short-term While scientists warn that increasing ocean acidity will doom […]
Increasingly acidic oceans damaging to marine life

Increasingly acidic oceans harm marine life Increasingly acidic oceans harm marine life mongabay.com July 5, 2006 More bad news for the world’s sea creatures Carbon dioxide emissions are altering ocean chemistry and putting sea life at risk according to a new report released today. The report, “Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Coral Reefs and Other […]
Severe damage expected for Caribbean coral reefs in 2006

Severe damage expected for Caribbean coral reefs in 2006 Severe damage expected for Caribbean coral reefs in 2006 mongabay.com July 4, 2006 Caribbean Sea temperatures have reached their annual high two months ahead of schedule according to a report from The Associated Press. Scientists are concerned that the region’s coral reefs may suffer even worse […]
Madagascar’s reefs escape damage from global warming

Madagascar’s reefs escape damage from global warming Madagascar’s reefs escape damage from global warming Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com June 22, 2006 A survey of coral along Madagascar’s northeast coast suggests that they island’s reef may have so far escaped the damaging effects of warmer ocean temperatures attributed to global climate change. Researchers from Conservation International […]
Global warming may cause permanent damage to coral reefs

Global warming may cause permanent damage to coral reefs Global warming may cause permanent damage to coral reefs mongabay.com May 15, 2006 Global warming has had a more devastating impact on coral reefs than previously believed says a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research, the first to […]
Corals may survive global warming by gorging themselves

Corals may survive global warming by gorging themselves Corals may survive global warming by gorging themselves mongabay.com April 26, 2006 A new study published in Nature says some coral are able to survive bleaching events by gorging themselves. An experiment with Hawaiian corals showed that when bleached, one species sharply increased its intake of food, […]
Damaged Caribbean reefs under attack

Damaged Caribbean reefs under attack Damaged Caribbean reefs under attack Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com April 10, 2006 After experiencing one of the most devastating coral bleaching events on record during September and October of 2005, reefs in the Caribbean are under attack from deadly diseases according to Reuters. Warnings of the onset of the bleaching […]
Recent Coral Bleaching at Great Barrier Reef

Recent Coral Bleaching at Great Barrier Reef Recent Coral Bleaching at Great Barrier Reef By Gretchen Cook-Anderson, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center April 5, 2006 An international team of scientists are working at a rapid pace to study environmental conditions behind the fast-acting and widespread coral bleaching currently plaguing Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. NASA’s satellite […]
Climate change threatens coldwater reefs

Climate change threatens coldwater reefs Climate change threatens coldwater reefs Ecological Society of America April 3, 2006 Corals don’t only occur in warm, sun-drenched, tropical seas; some species are found at depths of three miles or more in cold, dark waters throughout the world’s oceans. Some cold-water coral reefs are home to more than 1,300 […]
Pacific Ocean getting warmer and more acidic

Pacific Ocean getting warmer and more acidic Pacific Ocean getting warmer and more acidic Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com March 31, 2006 The Pacific Ocean is getting warmer and more acidic, while the amount of oxygen is decreasing, due to increased absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide say scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific […]
Great Barrier Reef in Trouble says Australian Scientist

Great Barrier Reef in Trouble says Australian Scientist Great Barrier Reef in trouble says Australian scientist Worst bleaching on record possible Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com February 1, 2006 Australia’s Great Barrier Reef may be at risk of one of its worst coral bleaching events on record warned a leading Australian scientist Tuesday. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of […]
Caribbean reefs suffer severe coral bleaching event

Caribbean reefs suffer severe coral bleaching event, NASA sends research team to investigate Caribbean reefs suffer severe coral bleaching event Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com December 20, 2005 The Caribbean experienced one of the most devastating coral bleaching events on record during September and October while hurricanes battered the Gulf of Mexico. In response, NASA and […]
Coral reefs decimated by 2050, Great Barrier Reef’s coral 95% dead

Coral reefs decimated by 2050, Great Barrier Reef’s coral 95% dead Coral reefs decimated by 2050, Great Barrier Reef’s coral 95% dead Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com November 17, 2005 Australia’s Great Barrier Reef could lose 95 percent of its living coral by 2050 should ocean temperatures increase by the 1.5 degrees Celsius projected by climate […]

Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia