topic: Coral Bleaching

topic: Coral Bleaching

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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.

‘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.

Seabird poop is recipe for coral recovery amid climate-driven bleaching
- Researchers have found that nutrients from seabird poop led to a doubling of coral growth rates and faster recovery after bleaching events, promoting overall resilience.
- Islands with invasive rats, which kill birds, saw half the coral growth rate of islands with healthy seabird populations, emphasizing the need for rat eradication to restore seabirds and nutrient flow.
- Individuals, organizations and governments can help coral reefs by better protecting seabirds, implementing and funding invasive predator control programs, restoring native vegetation, and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Hotter seas lead to coral bleaching along Colombia’s coast, 2023 expeditions find
- In the hottest months of 2023, sea temperatures rose above average for more than 12 weeks off Colombia’s Caribbean coast, leading to serious impacts on coral reefs.
- Expeditions in July by the NGO Corales de Paz revealed increased coral bleaching in monitored areas.
- The NGO found that 25% of the hard coral colonies sampled in Rincón del Mar and 28.5% in Punta Venado showed some signs of bleaching; off Varadero, the coral bleaching exceeded 40%.

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.

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.

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.

A ‘super reef’ recovery raises hopes — but also questions about its resilience
- Experts documented the substantial recovery of coral reefs around the southern Line Islands in the central Pacific after the area was hit by a large-scale coral bleaching event in 2015 and 2016.
- Many factors may have contributed to the reef’s recovery, including the fact that the reef is seemingly untouched by human activity, which helped maintain a healthy and resilient ecosystem.
- But other experts question whether this reef would be able to recover after more frequent bleaching events, which are predicted to increase as global temperatures continue to rise.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kenya port and ship-breaking projects threaten livelihoods and environment
- Plans to build an industrial fishing port and a ship-breaking yard along the Wasini Channel off Kenya’s coast threaten the livelihoods of local communities who depend on fishing, seaweed farming, and ecotourism, residents say.
- Underwater drilling carried out as part of surveys for the proposed port last November damaged coral reefs, while drilling for the ship-breaking yard destroyed seaweed crops.
- Community members say they fear even more devastating impacts once the projects, which also include a smelting plant, get underway in earnest.

Geopolitical standoff in South China Sea leads to environmental fallout
- Satellite images show significant growth in the occurrence of algal blooms in contested areas in the South China Sea.
- Images suggest that these algal blooms or phytoplankton overgrowth are linked to the presence of vessels anchored in the area and to island-building activities in the region.
- While satellite images help give a preview of the ecological state of the South China Sea, on-site observations are necessary to validate the findings, experts say.
- Decades of territorial and maritime disputes, however, have limited the conduct of studies and dissuaded the establishment of conservation zones in the South China Sea.

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.

Conservation solutions in paradise: Jamaica’s Oracabessa Bay Fishing Sanctuary
- A group of local fishermen and tourism industry stakeholders established a fishing sanctuary several years ago in Oracabessa Bay in response to a decline in vital Jamaican coastal life like coral and herbivorous fish.
- Surveys indicate an increase in reef health due to the efforts despite challenges, and the conservation model is set to be replicated at multiple other sites in Jamaica.

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.

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.

A mountain of a reef, taller than the Eiffel Tower, found on Great Barrier Reef
- Researchers have recently found a large, detached coral reef, measuring more than 500 meters (1,640 feet) in height, in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia.
- This is the eighth known detached coral reef in the area, and the first to be discovered in the past 120 years.
- While little is known about these reefs, scientists have observed that they host an array of marine life.
- This particular reef doesn’t appear to have been affected by the recent bleaching events at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, according to the lead researcher.

Mauritius’s plan to dump part of wrecked ship sparks controversy
- A Japanese-owned ship crashed on the coral reef barrier of Mauritius on July 25, leaking about 1,000 tonnes of fuel oil since then.
- On Aug. 15, the wreaked ship broke into two, leaving Mauritius with another problem: deciding what to do with the wreck.
- The government’s plan to sink the severed bow of the ship 13 kilometers (8 miles) east of the island, in open waters 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) deep, has sparked controversy.
- Experts disagree on the potential dangers of sinking the ship’s bow but are worried that the oil already spilled will pose a long-term threat to fragile ecosystems like coral reefs and mangrove forests.

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.

Coral reef loss helps some fish grow bigger, but perhaps not for long
- A new study finds that large, herbivorous fish species, such as parrotfish, surgeonfish and rabbitfish, benefit from coral reef demise due to an increase of a food source, algal turf.
- Certain fish species grew larger in response to coral loss and increased algal turf, contributing to an increase in reef fish biomass, although the study suggests that any gains would be short-lived.
- Data for this study were collected between 2003 and 2018 off the coast of Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, which experienced coral reef losses of up to 83% due to mass bleaching events and cyclone destruction during that period.

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.

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.

Hawaii braces for potential mass-coral bleaching event
- Current sea surface temperatures are warmer than normal for this time of year and have exceeded the temperatures preceding the catastrophic 2015 bleaching event.
- Bleached coral is not dead, but because the vast majority of the energy for the coral is coming from the algae’s activities, the vacated coral is severely weakened.
- People can act to alleviate coral stress by not touching, standing or anchoring on the reef; keeping chemicals such as sunscreens with oxybenzone or octinoxate out of the water; and suspending fishing for herbivorous fish.
- Visitors to Hawaiian reefs are being urged to participate in the real time monitoring of the reefs’ health using the newly launched Hawaiicoral.org website

A Philippine community that once ate giant clams now works to protect them
- The island of Samal in the southern Philippines is home to one of 40 sites around the country where giant clams (Tridacna spp.) are nurtured as part of a conservation program.
- For the local community, giant clams had long been a source of food, so there was initially some resistance to the program when it started in 2001.
- Today, the clam sanctuary has grown into an ecotourism venture that generates revenue for the community and employs local seniors, particularly women.
- However, the mollusks are threatened by rising ocean temperatures, declining salinity and other human-driven factors, leaving their fate — and that of the community that has come to depend on them — in the balance.

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.

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.”

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.

‘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.

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.

Coral bleaching events cause behavioral changes in key reef fish species
- New research suggests that higher ocean temperatures and coral bleaching are also triggering rapid behavioral shifts in reef fish.
- Over the course of two years, an international team of researchers spent more than 600 hours underwater observing butterflyfish, a species that is considered a key indicator of coral reef health, both before and after a global coral bleaching event in 2016.
- The researchers found that aggressive behavior had decreased in butterflyfish by an average of two thirds, with the biggest behavorial changes observed on reefs where bleaching had killed off the most coral.

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.

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.

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.

Noisy reefs help young fish find their home
- Young reef fish use the chorus of sounds made by other fish to find and settle in suitable habitat, but damage to reefs from storms and coral bleaching affects these sounds and thus the ability of juvenile fish to find a home.
- Researchers compared the effects of sounds of intact and degraded reefs on juvenile fish behavior; they found that soundscapes of degraded reefs lacked the volume and complexity of those of intact reefs and attracted far fewer juveniles.
- Limiting future bleaching by reducing carbon emissions that lead to warmer seas is considered key to the survival of coral reefs.

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.

Haiti’s most popular ecotourism destinations
- Haiti has been described by experts as a locale of “one of the richest” stores of botanical diversity in the Caribbean.
- Home to some of the most pristine coral reef in the Caribbean, Haiti also boasts magical cascading natural pools and waterfalls that are also steeped in local lore and legend.
- Given its need for conservation coupled with being home to rare natural wonders, a possible boon for Haiti’s future might be found in ecotourism, a $600 billion a year global industry.

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.

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: Crystal Davis, director of Global Forest Watch, on conservation and Big Data
- Mongabay has partnered with Global Forest Watch (GFW) over the years, and GFW has even funded some of our coverage of global forest issues.
- Crystal Davis fills us in on how the GFW tool and dataset is being used to inform forest conservation initiatives right now, new features planned for the future, and her thoughts on the ways Big Data is changing how we approach conservation.
- We also speak with Francesca Cunninghame, the Mangrove Finch Project Leader for the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands, in our latest Field Notes segment.

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.

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.

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.

‘Heart wrenching’: India’s coral reefs experiencing widespread bleaching, scientist says
- Rohan Arthur’s team has observed bleaching in each of the reefs they have surveyed this year in the Lakshadweep Archipelago.
- The present El Niño has hit the reefs in Lakshadweep before they could completely recover from 2010’s catastrophic El Niño. This is “heart wrenching”, Arthur said.
- But Lakshadweep’s reefs have recovered in the past (following the 1998 El Niño event), and Arthur hopes that the reefs will show resilience once again.

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.

Global coral bleaching event hits Australia’s Great Barrier Reef hard
- In October, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the third —and worst — global coral bleaching event in history was underway, caused by record high sea temperatures due to a strong El Niño combined with global warming.
- Australian scientists surveyed the Great Barrier Reef for damage in March, ranking the bleaching event at the most severe level, with up to 60 percent of corals affected in some places.
- Sea temperatures are starting to drop with the onset of fall, which means the worst of the bleaching is over. But researchers predict heavy loss of coral and an uncertain recovery.
- Critics say measures the government is taking to respond to the current bleaching and to protect the reef are inadequate and fail to address the root cause: climate change.

The impacts of haze on Southeast Asia’s wildlife
- Authorities and researchers are still shockingly ignorant of the ecological impacts of the smoke from Indonesia’s annual fires.
- Some creatures are likely finding it harder to sing, which is often crucial for attracting mates, defending territory and more.
- An orangutan disease called airsacculitis might be more prevalent during the smoky season.

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.

Does haze from burning forests affect marine life?

Two scientists are calling on researchers, NGOs, and governments to begin studying the impact of burning forests and peatlands in Indonesia on the already-threatened marine ecosystems of Southeast Asia. Every year, Indonesian farmers set forests, vegetation, and peatlands alight to clear them for agriculture, often palm oil, and pulp and paper plantations. Not only do […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]

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