Discussion Life on the Reef: Amazing World of Coral Fish…
Coral Reefs May Be Adapting To Global Warming:
As global warming heats up the Earth’s oceans, one ecosystem stands to be severely threatened: Coral reefs. However, new research has given scientists hope about the fate of these coral reefs.
An international team of researchers has studied a coral population in South-East Asian waters that had survived a bleaching event. What was significant about this reef was that it had also survived another bleaching event 12 years earlier in 1998. But some reefs will not be able to adapt to the changing climates as well as others.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112491613/coral-reefs-may-be-adapting-to-global-warming/
Let's hope that these critters can adapt, but even if so, they can only adapt so fast (and some critters with long lives will adapt slower)— so we need to give them all the 'help' adapting as we can. i.e.: reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Coincidentally, I just received the following on email today:
“Join Steve Palumbi and his team as they search for the world’s strongest corals!
Steve and his team will be traveling to American Samoa and the Cook Islands from March 18 – April 7, 2012 to find the world’s strongest corals. We invite you to follow them at…
http://www.stanford.edu/group/microdocs/blogs.html
…where they will be posting daily blog updates, photos, and videos from the field.
On Ofu Island in American Samoa, the team will follow up on previous research testing corals for resistance to high temperatures using portable coral stress tanks. Then, for the first time, they will take these stress tanks to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands to search for the strongest corals there too.”
But identifying strains of coral species (“genotypes” in bio lingo) that may be resistant to higher temperatures is also important for two reasons:
1) in identifying areas to declare as marine protected areas, so that the coral in those habitats can be best protected;
2) in being able to predict future scenarios under warming and acidification where certain “seed” populations might be sources for repopulating areas that might die off.
In other words, this is basic research to envision appropriate management strategies.
By the way, I believe that Pam Miller is going to start an entirely separate Einztein discussion following the blog posts of Steve and his team. We'll post a message in this discussion forum with the link once that is up.
best
Jason
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