Corals And Coral Oceans : The Great Barrier Reef

Corals build colonies that secrete calcium carbonate to form ocean reefs. When they're healthy, coral reefs provide shelter and food for animals all along the food chain, including the top: us. Across the planet, half a billion people rely, directly and indirectly, on corals for their living. That's why what happens to the 9,000-year-old Great Barrier Reef, as well as to other reefs worldwide, is critical. The floods in Queensland have hurt the Great Barrier Reef by funnelling into the ocean vast plumes of freshwater and agricultural runoff that could severely damage the coral. Besides the extreme rain that sparked the floods, rising ocean temperatures, changes to the ocean's chemistry and the global trade in natural resources — all symptoms of our fossil-fuel economy — are waging a multiform war on the marine

Elevated sea temperatures caused by climate change and extra-bright sunlight can result in coral bleaching. As the water gets warmer, corals will expel the algae known as zooxanthellae that lives in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white. When temperatures drop, the corals can recover, but they might be vulnerable to disease and when

Dr. James Kerry from James Cook University (2017) explains that, “A temperature change of only one or two degrees for three or four weeks is enough to push corals out of their comfort zones and they then have more stress put upon them” (para. 30). This ethos argument is very effective. Doctor James Cook gives a lot of input on coral bleaching that is very interesting. If coral bleaching isn’t on your radar yet, it will be soon. The coral reef provides homes to an abundant amount of marine life. Bleaching could cause the extinction of many coral species. According to Stephanie Wear, The Nature Conservancy’s director of coral reef conservation (2017), “Recent steamy temperatures indicate a rough year ahead for the world’s coral reefs” (para. 1). About ninety-three percent of climate change heat is absorbed by the ocean. One thing to understand is that corals have a very small

Coral bleaching is normally characterized by the expulsion of the zooxanthellae algae, loss of algal pigmentation, or both. Coral bleaching events have had serious effects on corals and reefs worldwide. What is crucial to the understanding of zooxanthellae expulsion and bleaching is how the density of zooxanthellae within the coral is changing, if at all, under the prevailing range of environmental conditions (Gates and Edmunds, 1999). Over the last twenty years, there has been a dramatic increase in both the frequency and intensity of coral bleaching events. Sixty major bleaching events have been reported between 1960 and 1979, whereas only nine were reported prior to 1979 (Huppert and Stone, 1998). Given the dependence of the coral on this symbiotic algae, it is important to determine the cause of these bleaching events. According to Helvarg (2000, p.12):

Coral bleaching usually occurs when the surface of a sea with coral in it becomes too warm for the coral. When the water heats to as little as one degree higher than normal, coral expels the algae living in its tissue, which causes it to turn completely white. The rise in temperature of the sea surface has been linked mainly to global warming. Other causes of coral bleaching include oxygen starvation caused by an increase in zooplankton, increased solar irradiance, increased sedimentation, bacterial infections, changes in salinity, herbicides, low tide and exposure, cyanide fishing and elevated sea levels. Bleaching events in 2016 were unprecedented, nearly 90% of the coral in the Great

The Crown of thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) is another large threat to the reef. These starfish consumes coral tissue faster than the corals can grow. This is commonly known as a crown-of-thorns starfish ‘outbreak’.

The Great Barrier Reef is an oceanic/costal ecosystem off the coastline of Port Douglas, Australia. There are man costal systems that are significant to the role of the Reef including coral reefs, wetlands, and rainforests etc. The reef consists of many diverse corals and is a home for over 1,500 different species of fish. The reef is unique for many distinctive reasons; a reason that is unique is that it is acknowledged as one of the most imperative biological possessions. The Reef is a complex ecosystem with numerous organisms trusting on each other for nourishment and endurance. Broadly all collections of maritime plants and animals are extravagantly signified in the Reef. The animals range from dugongs

Coral reefs are natural formations that host around twenty-five percent of the world’s marine species, however, these reefs are majorly threatened (“Air”). The Great Barrier Reef in particular is an important marine location, home to major marine diversity with over 3,000 reefs over 1,400 miles (“Great” World Book). The Great Barrier Reef is a limestone formation made of coral polyps and algae, and lays off the coast of Queensland, Australia. For many years, this reef has been exposed to several threats. The threats facing the Great Barrier Reef include pollution, invasive species, and climate change.

Easily the most well-known natural World Heritage Site in Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, which is the world’s most extensive coral reef ecosystem, was inscribed with UNESCO in 1981. The site covers approximately 348,000 square kilometers and includes a wide range of depths, comprising of shallow inshore, mid-shelf, and even extending into oceanic waters 2,000 meters deep. The Great Barrier Reef is actually made up of around 2,500 individual reefs, encompassing some 400 different species of coral, which makes for some of the most remarkable underwater scenery in the world. The massive size and varying depths allows for a wide array of ecological habitats and species, making the reef one of the most complex ecosystems on the planet.

Coral reefs around the world are in danger. One of the causes is global warming, which has been increasing the temperature of the ocean water resulting in coral bleaching. This essay will focus on damage occurring to the Great Barrier Reef.

Coral bleaching isn’t as extreme as it sounds, it’s just a way for coral to adapt to changes in their environment but it’s still a bad thing to happen. Warmer temperatures and also ocean acidification are the culprits of coral bleaching, making the coral expel algae from their tissues and causing the coral to be white. For example, the 1998 El Nino/ mass coral bleaching event, the article Not just a pretty face (2) proposes that “although it was triggered by a natural event”, it demonstrated how the ocean can adapt under stress but it also “symbolizes the ultimate consequence of our thirst for fossil fuels”. It’s normal for climate change to cause such an effect on the reefs, humans are to blame for the more rapid climate change though. Believe

Apart from the threat of the mining industry the Great Barrier Reef is also threatened by the increasing water pollution through plantations and farms in Queensland due to a great use of fertilizers. The waste water that incur on these plantations are often flushed into the sea or get disposed there and therefore these waste waters have a direct impact on the Great Barrier Reef. Besides many toxins that are harmful for the inhabitants of the reefs and the corals the nutrients of the fertilizers enhance the growth of plankton and various species of algae which in turn increase the propagation of the crown-of-thorns starfish, which cause enormous damage in the reefs.1

Oceans have a major part in protecting Earth; however ocean acidification, rising sea levels, and melting ice caps, are endangering our planet. The sea is the world's biggest carbon reservoir. As more man-made CO2 has entered the environment, a greater amount of the gas has entered the sea, and the abundance of CO2 results in ocean acidification. Warner water temperatures brought on by environmental change stress corals since they are extremely touchy to changes in temperature. On the off chance that water temperatures stay higher than common for a long time, the zooxanthella they rely on for food leave their tissue. Without zooxanthella, corals turn white since zooxanthellae give corals their color. White corals are called bleached. Bleached

From 1979 to 2006 there were at least six mass coral bleaching events, each of which were triggered by warming conditions, including higher water temperatures (Goldberg & Wilkinson, 2004). In 2005 the United States lost half of their Caribbean reefs due to one such bleaching event (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2016). The color of corals typically comes from the zooxanthellae living within the coral tissues, and the white color that is associated with coral bleaching is due to the expelling of the zooxanthellae as water temperatures increase (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2016). Therefore, as coral bleaching seems to be related to increases in water temperature, it is reasonable to predict that coral bleaching events could become more common as global climate change results in further ocean temperature increases. However, bleaching events do not kill corals, rather coral bleaching places the corals under high stress and makes them more vulnerable to other disturbances, which results in

Coral reefs contain symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae which gives the coral its healthy brownish color. The algae "utilizes sunlight and the coral animal's respired CO2 to produce energy rich compounds that feed the coral host" (AIMS, 2003). When stress factors such as "heat, solar radiation, pollution, reduced salinity and changes in oxygenation" occur around the coral, bleaching can begin (Dennis). When bleaching occurs, the algae, which create nutrients for the coral to feed from, is released due to stresses to the reef. Thus the coral starves and its white calcium carbonate skeleton of the coral becomes visible (AIMS, 2003). But one of the main stresses that contributes to the lifeless white appearance of the coral is the warmer temperatures of the sea surface water.