Talk:Coral bleaching

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has been described as “one of the most amazing wonders of the natural world.” With its increddible beauty, tourists world wide flock to see the natural wonder. The Great Barrier Reef is really one of the most magnificent creations on earth.

As we are regularly reminded in the news and by the government and other organizations that the reef is under many possibly fatal dangers. These include pollutants run off, over fishing in some areas, tourism vessels creating water pollution, tourists sun creams killing corals, tourists inadvertently braking corals, tourist and fishermens ankers braking large areas of coral, possible oil spills by tankers going through the great barrier reef with loads of oil and fuels and the threat of global warming. All of the risks could lead to this precious ecosystems death.

But coral bleaching seems to be the worst problem that reef is currently facing. Thought to be caused by run off from the numerous cane fields the poisons affects the corals as well as the warming temp of the sea.

• My money's on the Coral starving to death due to lack of zooplankton due to overfishing

[1] Mike Young 10:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

that is a horrible reference. The chance of coral starving from lack of zooplankton due to overfishing is highly unlikely, esp. for scleractinian hermatypic corals. Most likely high SSTs and climate change will cause greater coral death over a huge range. Corals relies on symbiotic algae to provide 95% of its energy. Zooplankton is very important but the connect between coral--zooplankton and overfishing is extremely weak.

Statement added "Scientists also predict that the Great Barrier Reef can only last for 20 to 30 years. If nothing is done to stop these problems, it will be gone forever.". Was deleted from Coral Bleaching section because there is no evidence of this to my knowledge of a scientists declaring that the GBR can only last 20 to 30 years. In 20 to 30 years the GBR might be algae dominated or single coral species dominated or heavily degraded but no publication cites GBR not existing. --Squahsoc (talk) 10:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion Ariel3 (talk) 20:59, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the pathogenesis of the disease should be updated. There are many interesting papers dealing with the pathogenic role of V. Shiloi and other Vibrio spp. in coral bleaching pathogenesis, I.E.: Rosenberg, E. and Y. Ben Haim [2002], Microbial Diseases of Corals and Global Warming. Environmental Microbiology 4: 318-326. Sutherland, K.P., J. Porter and C. Torres [2004], Disease and Immunity in Caribbean and Indo-pacific Zooxanthellate Corals. Marine Ecology Progress Series 266: 273-302. I have added some notices only on the known pathogenic role of V. Shiloi. However at least the pathogenic action of 'Vibrio corallilyticus' should be added.

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new section

should there be something on effects of coral bleaching?Akid 10:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

yeah probably, add coral bleaching effect on reproduction, larave dispersal, coral abundance, coral mortality, fish habitat, tourism etc. . --Squahsoc (talk) 20:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Ocean acidification ref

The given reference for the effects of ocean acidification doesn't seem to me to support the claims made for it. A better one might be this:

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/45/17442.full

What think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.22.217.151 (talk) 06:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

But you have given a dead link! --Epipelagic (talk) 09:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

ummm... it works for me. There paper is "Ocean acidification causes bleaching and productivity loss in coral reef builders" Anthony et al 2008, PNAS.

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/45/17442 here's a doi. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0804478105 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.22.217.151 (talk) 17:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Potential resource 2.July.2011 Science News

Mellow corals beat the heat: Species that overreact to distress signals from algae more likely to succumb to warming by Tina Hesman Saey July 2nd, 2011 Science News Vol.180 #1 (p. 12)

Some corals overreact to distress signals sent by resident algae when waters warm, researchers in New Jersey and Israel report online June 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The overreactors ramp up production of an executioner protein called caspase and eventually commit cellular suicide. Corals that survive warming start out with high levels of caspase but then quickly decrease the amount of the protein, the researchers found. The study “adds critical data to help figure out how coral bleaching happens,” says Stephen Palumbi, a marine population biologist at Stanford University who was not involved in the research. Corals bleach when their algae become stressed by warming water, pollution or other factors and either leave, die or get eaten. ... In the new study, a type of coral from the Red Sea called Seriatopora hystrix (known as bird’s nest or needle coral) bleached but stayed alive for six weeks in water that was warmed by 6 degrees Celsius, researchers led by Paul Falkowski of Rutgers University and Dan Tchernov of the University of Haifa in Israel found. In contrast, another Red Sea coral called Stylophora pistillata had a meltdown after only a week in the heat. Levels of caspase protein made by the melting coral shot up to six times normal levels, while levels of the protein dropped in the heat-resistant coral.

97.87.29.188 (talk) 22:30, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Bleached coral photo

The photograph titled "Moofushi Bleached Corals" is of dead coral on a reef flat and is unrelated to coral bleaching - it looks white/bleached as the sunlight is reflecting off the carbonate substrate. I'll try and upload a more accurate photograph (i.e. one with bleached corals). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acropora (talk • contribs) 02:59, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Resource?

Coral reefs sending a warning signal by Drew Harvell CNN.com September 27, 2010. Editor's note: Drew Harvell is a professor and associate director of the Cornell University Center for a Sustainable Future. Also see related Planetary boundaries. 99.109.124.5 (talk) 06:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Minor edits

Just starting a series of minor edits intending to clean up a little. I'll document why here:

The new residents may be of a different species. - removed, as there is currently no evidence of exogenous acquisition (acquiring new types of zooxanthellae from an outside source that were not previously resident) in scleractinian corals.