Coral Bleaching Is Getting Worse, Not Better (Tucker Martin)

Coral as a reef is not a single organism, rather, it is a collection of individual organisms of the family cnidaria that are firmly fixed to other corals and eventually the seafloor via a calcium carbonate skeleton that it secretes constantly to both build and repair itself post damage. Depending on the specific coral species it may eat small fish or more commonly, planktonic animals and algae. In the case of coral bleaching, the algae is what is important. The algae exists symbiotically with the coral, providing it both food through photosynthesis and the color for the coral, in turn the coral provides protection and access to the light the algae needs to photosynthesize.
        The process of coral bleaching is simple, the rising ocean temperatures affect the temperature sensitive algae present in the coral, causing the coral to expel the algae, exposing the white calcium carbonate skeleton underneath to show.
         While the process is simple, the implications are complex and far reaching. After only a few days of the coral expelling the algae under the adverse ocean conditions, the coral begins to starve and after about a week, the coral dies. Depending on the coral and hypothetically assuming the ocean conditions immediately reverted back to coral-supporting conditions, it could take years to decades for the coral to grow back to its previous size since coral only grows at a rate of between .3cm to 10cm per year. Unfortunately, hypotheticals are not true and the reality is that rising ocean temperatures not only affect coral by bleaching it, they also affect the fertility rates of coral with the most severely affected coral residing close to the surface (Florida State University).
            Those are the natural implications, what may get countries to begin focusing on the problem is the economic  and social implications, as the University of Georgia states, "roughly 500 million people worldwide rely on them as a source of protein and for coastal protection, and they are responsible for billions of dollars in tourism and fisheries revenue" (University of Georgia).
        This issue relates perfectly to our Principles of Ecology course because it discusses the serious affects the environment can have on the species that reside within it, in this case how even a slight change in the average ocean temperature in a relatively small ecosystem can have drastic effects on far more than just that local ecosystem. I think that the effects of global warming are going to exacerbate the coral bleaching issue and we're going to very quickly lose one of the most beautiful sights in the world. I encourage anyone and everyone to go snorkeling or scuba diving on a living reef before they're all gone.

Works Cited

University of Georgia. "Close-up of coral bleaching event." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 June 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140603135827.htm>.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. "Coral Reef Protection: What are Coral Reefs?." EPA, 12 May, 2012.

         

Picture Credits

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/coral-bleaching-creates-a-vicious-cycle-of-further-bleaching-and-disease.html