Here is some good news from the Caribbean – despite a >95% decline in staghorn coral since the 1970′s, there are some signs of resurgence:
Dropping 12 feet below the ocean’s surface less than a mile off Fort Lauderdale’s beach-front towers, a diver might wonder if he or she somehow got magically transported to [...]
So it’s that time of year again in the Caribbean where the corals undergo the annual mass spawn. Along with this ritual comes the coral researchers, who run a bunch of experiments with coral recruitment, settlement, fertilization, which involves catching coral sperm and eggs using nets (see above) and mixing it all up in [...]
Researchers from SCRIPPS Oceanographic Institute have published an important article in the journal PLoS ONE, detailing research that confirms what has suspected for some time – that local stressors reduce the resilience of corals to bleaching events.
Jessica Carilli and colleagues set out to test the hypothesis that chronic [...]
Scientists from NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Program are forecasting a significant potential for higher than normal thermal stress in the Caribbean, especially in the Lesser Antilles, through October 2009. Continued high water temperatures can lead to a high probability of significant coral bleaching and infectious coral disease outbreaks. The forecast is based on the July [...]
The paradigm of ‘coral vs algae’ has become entrenched in coral reef science over the last few decades. The classic example of this paradigm in the Caribbean was from a paper published byTerry Hughes in a 1994 article in the journal Nature, entitled “Catastrophes, Phase Shifts and Large-Scale Degradation of a Caribbean Coral Reef”. The [...]
Just finished reading a great excerpt from a book called ‘Disease-hunting scientist’ by a Canadian author called Edward Willett. The scientist in question is Dr Laurie Richardson from Florida International University, who is well known for her work on ‘black band disease’ (see image above) on Caribbean coral reefs. I’ve never read [...]
Following on from two great posts by John and Albert on Carribean reef fish decline and coral collapse, I thought it’d be worth posting these visually stunning images from a recent publication by Loren McClenechan, titled “Documenting Loss of Large Trophy Fish from [...]
Paul Blanchon and his team have uncovered evidence of extremely rapid sealevel rise 121,000 years ago in one of the warm interglacial periods. Basically by dating coral skeletons at a place called Xcaret (the beautiful place where a fossil Reef lies exposed), Paul was able to document an [...]
There is a nice story in today’s News and Observer, the local paper for the Research Triangle, in North Carolina. Wade Rawlins is an environmental writer who covers a range of issues. He did an excellent job describing coral reefs, their value and threats to them, for a lay audience. I wish we could get [...]
One of the many big political surprises in the US yesterday was news that the Bush administration was considering implementing two or more massive marine reserves in US territories in the Pacific. The move would protect some of the regions most remote coral reefs. What isn’t so surprising is that, according to the Washington Post, [...]
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