Coral bleaching in Indonesia takes a turn for the worst:
The Wildlife Conservation Society has released initial field observations that indicate that a dramatic rise in the surface temperature in Indonesian waters has resulted in a large-scale bleaching event that has devastated coral populations. The initial survey carried out by the team revealed that over 60 percent of corals were bleached.
“Bleaching” — a whitening of corals that occurs when algae living within coral tissues are expelled — is an indication of stress caused by environmental triggers such as sea surface temperature …

… or at least that seems to be what Australia’s Opposition leader thinks would happen if he stopped the expansion of marine protected areas in Australian waters:
In a policy aimed at marginal Queensland seats, Mr Abbott said a Coalition government would ”immediately suspend the marine protection process which is threatening the livelihoods of many people in the fishing industry and many people in the tourism industry”.
”All of us want to see appropriate environmental protection, but man and nature have to live together,” Mr Abbott said as he toured the seat …

Several denialists have sort to deliberately confuse the readership over the important evidence gathered by De’ath et al. (2009) on slowing coral calcification on the Great Barrier Reef.  Given the recent resurgence in this misinformation, I thought it would be a good idea to post Dr Glenn De’ath, Dr Janice M. Lough and Dr Katharina E. Fabricius’s recent reply  to Dr Peter Ridd’s confused and misleading claims.
The maintenance of coral calcification rates is critical for the future of coral reefs and it is, therefore, important to identify spatial patterns and …

Read and hear the full story here.

Report finds some good news for Great Barrier Reef
Sarah Clarke reported this story on Saturday, June 12, 2010 08:15:00
ELIZABETH JACKSON: After facing what appeared to be a gloomy outlook, there’s finally some good news for the Great Barrier Reef.
After a hot summer, and a series of heatwaves last year, scientists say late monsoonal conditions protected much of the coral from a major bleaching event.
But a new study shows mortality in the world’s tropical oceans is increasing, and as bleaching becomes more common, corals simply aren’t …

A new study published in the open source journal PLoS ONE (Bongaerts et al 2010) sheds light on the connectivity of corals within and between reef habitats, with some pretty surprising findings. Whilst previous research has identified distinct differences in morphology and genetic structure over small spatial scales, these new findings from the outer-shelf reefs on the Great Barrier Reefs demonstrates that coral populations from directly adjacent habitats can show strong genetic isolation. To test this, the authors used the ubiquitous ‘birds-nest’ coral (Seriatopora hysterix), sampled across a depth gradient …

Reefs at Risk is a World Resources Institute project that analyses current threats to coral reefs worldwide. The original groundbreaking report, released in 1998, provided a critical look at the world’s coral reefs and human impacts – coastal zone development, overfishing, sedimentation.

The next report, due this year (2010) is set to include a much more up to date analysis of global threats, including coral bleaching, disease and ocean acidification. This time, they are harnessing the power of Google Earth and Web 2.0:
Harnessing the power of interactive maps is Reefs …

JO CHANDLER, The Age
May 24, 2010

ON AN idyllic coral atoll just a two-hour boat ride from Queensland’s Gladstone Harbour, out past the endless line of tankers queued to load coal for export, a half-dozen scientists work frantically against the tide.

Their objective? To explore the consequences of rising atmospheric carbon – which evidence overwhelmingly attributes to the burning of coal and other fossil fuels – on the delicate chemistry of the reef and the creatures living there.
The project team, led by David Kline, a young scientist from the University of Queensland’s …

Just when you thought that all the ‘gates’ had rusted off their hinges, another one has blown open!
Welcome to “Reef Gate” as created by diving enthusiast Walter A Starck who has taken issue with GBRMPA scientist, Lawrence McCook, and 20 other leading marine scientists.  Dr. McCook and his colleagues published a scientific review of the impact of marine protected areas within the Great Barrier Reef which shows “major, rapid benefits of no-take areas for targeted fish and sharks, in both reef and non-reef habitats, with potential benefits for fisheries as …

Here’s a sobering presentation from the Jeremy Jackson (“Dr Doom”) titled “How We Wrecked the Ocean”. Like him or not, Jackson is a compelling speaker with a powerful message:
In this bracing talk, coral reef ecologist Jeremy Jackson lays out the shocking state of the ocean today: overfished, overheated, polluted, with indicators that things will get much worse. Astonishing photos and stats make the case.
Jeremy Jackson is the Ritter Professor of Oceanography and Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution …

Here’s a fascinating documentary of a Pacific Island community in Papua New Guinea facing the reality of sea level rise and climate change:
Takuu atoll is an idyllic home to articulate, educated people who maintain a 1200 year-old culture and language with pride – but all is not well in paradise. Takuu is disintegrating and when two scientists arrive to investigate, the people realise their attempts to preserve the atoll are currently making the situation worse (more here).

The CORDIO/IUCN working group on Climate Change and Coral Reefs have issued a bleaching alert for a moderate level of bleaching in the Seychelles:
The southeast monsoon in the WIO has set in early even before the end of march, dissipating the hotspot rapidly on the east African coast, but it persist over Seychelles granitic islands. No new or intensification of bleaching/mortality for East Africa though more may yet occur in Seychelles.
Field observations of bleaching and in some cases mortality have been reported in Kenya, Zanzibar, Madagascar & Comoros as follows, …

The skeptics who frequently deny the reality of climate change in the world’s media lack all scientific credibility, charge three eminent Australian researchers who have just been listed among the world’s 20 most influential scientists in the field of climate change.
Marine researchers Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Professor Terry Hughes and Professor John Pandolfi were ranked in the world’s top 20 by the international science citation analysts Thomson Reuters and ScienceWatch, for the decade 1999-2009. All three are coral reef researchers, members of the ARC …

Distinguishing between the multitudes of different reef-building corals is a struggle that coral reef ecologists are well familiar with.  Fortunately, coral biologists such as Professor Charlie Veron have produced comprehensive taxonomic works designed to help decipher this important group of organisms. But these taxonomic treatises are by nature voluminous and are not designed to be taken underwater.
All that has changed now with Russell Kelley’s Indo Pacific Coral Finder.  Russell, a well-known biologist and communicator, has produced an ingenious guide which can easily be carried underwater and allow anyone to identify …

Atrazine is in the news again (e.g. ABC 7.30 Report Thursday 25th March, 60 Minutes, 21st March) and is being found in more and more water bodies in Australia, and notably Queensland in recent times.  Here is where it has been found so far:

Rainwater at a few ng/l (unpublished data from Atherton, Qld), in streams in almost all of eastern Queensland at concentrations of between one and 50 ug/l (Lewis et al 2009; Packett et al 2009),
Great Barrier Reef lagoon …

Still waiting for John McLean and Bob Carter to comment on the Foster et al response published in JGR outlining exactly how they manipulated their dataset to give a false conclusion. According to McLean’s website, although the authors were well aware of the Foster response before it was published:
The informal nature of the Foster et al critique makes it inappropriate for me to respond in detail.
Right. Apparently the long delay between the original McLean et al publication and the Foster et al critique was in part due to the fact …

One of my students (Chris Doropoulos) noticed the onset of coral bleaching up at Heron Island. Here is Chris’s report (and photographs attached):
We arrived to Heron Island on the 5th of February and did a quick snorkel from the jetty to the shipwreck that afternoon. We noticed that lots of the Acropora aspera colonies (branching corals, see photographs above) were bleached, and that it appeared recent. What was most striking is that, in general, only the east facing sides of the colony branches were bleached and the west facing sides …