Life will find a way...
Posted on 04/24/2009 7:52:52 AM PDT by Maelstorm
Marine scientists say they are astonished at the spectacular recovery of certain coral reefs in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park from a devastating coral bleaching event in 2006.
That year high sea temperatures caused massive and severe coral bleaching in the Keppel Islands, in the southern part of the GBR. The damaged reefs were quickly smothered by a single species of seaweed – an event that can spell the total loss of the corals.
However, a lucky combination of rare circumstances meant the reefs were able to achieve a spectacular recovery, with abundant corals re-established in a single year, says Dr Guillermo Diaz-Pulido, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) and the Centre for Marine Studies at The University of Queensland.
Dr Diaz-Pulido explains that the rapid recovery is due to an exceptional combination of previously-underestimated ecological mechanisms.
“Three factors were critical. The first was exceptionally high re-growth of fragments of surviving coral tissue. The second was an unusual seasonal dieback in the seaweeds, and the third was the presence of a highly competitive coral species, which was able to outgrow the seaweed.
“But this also all happened in the context of a well-protected marine area and moderately good water quality”, said Dr Diaz-Pulido.
“It is rare to see reports of reefs that bounce back from mass coral bleaching or other human impacts in less than a decade or two,” he adds
“The exceptional aspect was that corals recovered by rapidly regrowing from surviving tissue. Recovery of corals is usually thought to depend on sexual reproduction and the settlement and growth of new corals arriving from other reefs. This study demonstrates that for fast-growing coral species asexual reproduction is a vital component of reef resilience” says Dr Sophie Dove, also from CoECRS and The University of Queensland.
“Coral reefs globally are increasingly being damaged by mass bleaching and climate change, and their capacity to recovery from that damage is critical to their future,” explains Prof. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of CoECRS and The University of Queensland. “Our study suggests that managing local stresses that affect reefs such as overfishing and declining water quality can have a big influence on the trajectory of reefs under rapid global change.”
“Clearly, we need to urgently deal with the problem of rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but managing reefs to reduce the impact of local factors can buy important time while we do this,” he says.
Understanding the different mechanisms of resilience is critical for reef management under climate change. “Diversity in processes may well be critical to the overall resilience and persistence of coral reef ecosystems globally,” Dr Laurence McCook, from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, says.
The research was partially funded by a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation awarded to Dr McCook, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority as well as the ARC Centre of Excellence program.
“This combination of circumstances provided a lucky escape for the coral reefs in Keppel Islands, but is also a clear warning for the Great Barrier Reef. As climate change and other human impacts intensify, we need to do everything we possibly can to protect the resilience of coral reefs,” he adds.
Life will find a way...
Yes it will and it is not nearly as fragile as those who seek to use nature to a political end would have us believe.
“Clearly, we need to urgently deal with the problem of rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but managing reefs to reduce the impact of local factors can buy important time while we do this,”
I’m still trying to figure out what CO2 has to do with this
article.
Who knew that a few thousand Prius's would do it?
So. Another “ecatastrophe” narrowly averted, eh? Could it be that the oracles of gloom and doom don’t know the future any better than the rest of us mortals?
Yes it was.
You are right. They don’t even know the history of this world so how in the hell can they predict the future?
That's right, we've always been told corals are hundreds and hundreds of years, if not thousands for a 1/4 inch. This event has upset their claims and they are struggling to explain it.
But the funny thing is that any good Coral Reef Aquarist can tell you how fast Steghorn grows. I was propagating peices of it in only months. All it took was a good calcium generator.
As a matter of fact, the theory of how the sea generates calcium is that shells buried in sand, CO2 and good water flow produces liquid calcium. In fact some Reef Aquarists say they have duplicated this effect in their Reefs.
I gave up on my Reef, because it was such high maintenance. The Red and Purple CORAL algae would cover the tank in a couple of months if you didn't scrape. I had to test the water at least once every three days else the system could go out of whack.
Reefing was fun, but it was a lot of engineering work and expensive. But it taught me that a lot of what Evolutionists were says about Reefs was bunkum.
Let’s remember that in the first few centuries after the last ice-age, corals survived greater amounts of fresh water, more rapid global warming, and a faster rising sea level than at anytime from then until now. Anything we’re seeing now is minuscule in comparison.
These things have survived multiple catastrophes over hundreds of millions of years. Asteroids, supervocanoes, the Deccan traps etc etc etc. I’d be more worried about our survival then the coral reefs.....
Coral Reef Recovers Due to Natural Processes - Page 36B
I had a piece of coral embedded underneath my skin under my big toe. It went from the size of a grain of sand to something about a half-inch across in a matter of weeks.
It was rather painful when I dug it out, I will tell you...
He slipped up and admitted the truth... that they don't know as much as they think they do.
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