Journal ArticleDOI
Coral reef bleaching: ecological perspectives
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TLDR
An effort must be made to understand the impact of bleaching on the remainder of the reef community and the long-term effects on competition, predation, symbioses, bioerosion and substrate condition, all factors that can influence coral recruitment and reef recovery.Abstract:
Coral reef bleaching, the whitening of diverse invertebrate taxa, results from the loss of symbiotic zooxanthellae and/or a reduction in photosynthetic pigment concentrations in zooxanthellae residing within the gastrodermal tissues of host animals. Of particular concern are the consequences of bleaching of large numbers of reef-building scleractinian corals and hydrocorals. Published records of coral reef bleaching events from 1870 to the present suggest that the frequency (60 major events from 1979 to 1990), scale (co-occurrence in many coral reef regions and often over the bathymetric depth range of corals) and severity (>95% mortality in some areas) of recent bleaching disturbances are unprecedented in the scientific literature. The causes of small scale, isolated bleaching events can often be explained by particular stressors (e.g., temperature, salinity, light, sedimentation, aerial exposure and pollutants), but attempts to explain large scale bleaching events in terms of possible global change (e.g., greenhouse warming, increased UV radiation flux, deteriorating ecosystem health, or some combination of the above) have not been convincing. Attempts to relate the severity and extent of large scale coral reef bleaching events to particular causes have been hampered by a lack of (a) standardized methods to assess bleaching and (b) continuous, long-term data bases of environmental conditions over the periods of interest. An effort must be made to understand the impact of bleaching on the remainder of the reef community and the long-term effects on competition, predation, symbioses, bioerosion and substrate condition, all factors that can influence coral recruitment and reef recovery. If projected rates of sea warming are realized by mid to late AD 2000, i.e. a 2°C increase in high latitude coral seas, the upper thermal tolerance limits of many reef-building corals could be exceeded. Present evidence suggests that many corals would be unable to adapt physiologically or genetically to such marked and rapid temperature increases.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Consolidated Checklist of Hard Corals of the Genus Acropora Oken, 1815 (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) in North Borneo, East Malaysia.
Rolando Robert,Dexter Jiunn Herng Lee,Kenneth Francis Rodrigues,Muhammad Ali Syed Hussein,Zarinah Waheed,S. Vijay Kumar +5 more
TL;DR: The species richness of Acropora fauna of North Borneo, East Malaysia is described, based on review of literature and as corroborated by voucher specimens, to reinforce its inclusion as part the global hotspot of coral biodiversity.
Uma abordagem metodológica para o estudo das zooxantelas de corais do brasil
TL;DR: The necessary methodological procedures for the study of the zooxanthellae and other microsymbionts of scleractinian corals of Brazil are presented and the key aspects of the methodologies that should be considered in order to guarantee valuable results are discussed.
Dissertation
Stress environnementaux chez le corail scléractiniaire Pocillopora damicornis : du modèle expérimental à l'identification de marqueurs fonctionnels du stress.
TL;DR: Ce travail a porte sur le corail scleractiniaire Pocillopora damicornis et the bacterie Vibrio coralliilyticus, et a mis en oeuvre des experimentations "ecologiquement realistes" de stress en milieu controle.
Dissertation
Biogeochemical consequences of organic matter release by reef-building scleractinian corals
TL;DR: The ecosystem engineering feature of organic matter release by reef corals is examined by successive investigations on distinct pathways of this material within fringing reef ecosystems: ranging from its initial release and function as an energy and nutrient carrier, to its degradation and recycling by reef-associated organisms, in particular microbes.
Journal ArticleDOI
Contrasting effects of the El Niño 2015–16 event on coral reefs from the central pacific coast of Mexico
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report the response of corals and both green and red filamentous and coralline algae from the central Mexican Pacific coast to the 2015-16 El Nino event.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
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Journal ArticleDOI
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Journal ArticleDOI
Responses of coral reefs and reef organisms to sedimentation
TL;DR: Data is needed on the threshold levels for reef orgarusms and for the reef ecosystem as a whole the levels above which sedimentation has lethal effects for particular species and above which normal functioning of the reef ceases.
Book
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TL;DR: The Southern Oscillation (Variability of the Tropical Atmosphere). Oceanic Variability in the Tropics as mentioned in this paper is a well-known phenomenon in meteorological models of tropical weather.
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