Journal ArticleDOI
Coral reef bleaching: ecological perspectives
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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
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Book ChapterDOI
Coral reefs of the Americas: An introduction to Latin American Coral Reefs
TL;DR: There are three main coral reef regions on the American continents: Brazilian, Caribbean and the eastern Pacific as mentioned in this paper, and most coral reefs border Latin American countries, hence the title of this book.
Some ecological factors affecting coral reef assemblages off hurghada, red sea, egypt.
TL;DR: Three shallow reef sites were investigated during four seasons off the Marine Biological Station at Hurghada, Red Sea, Egypt, finding that repeated bleaching events in the future may expose corals to an increasingly hostile environment.
Book ChapterDOI
Mass Mortalities and Extinctions
TL;DR: Major mass mortalities of the most frequently affected marine benthic organisms are here summarized, reporting the causes, dynamics and documented effects of these phenomena.
Journal ArticleDOI
Dynamics and patterns of algal colonization on mechanically damaged and dead colonies of the coral Porites lutea.
Journal ArticleDOI
Assessing coral bleaching and recovery with a colour reference card in Watamu Marine Park, Kenya
TL;DR: Different patterns of coral bleaching and mortality were evidenced which were easily and clearly detected with the colour card method during bothBleaching and a post-bleaching events.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs.
TL;DR: The commonly observed high diversity of trees in tropical rain forests and corals on tropical reefs is a nonequilibrium state which, if not disturbed further, will progress toward a low-diversity equilibrium community as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate change : the IPCC scientific assessment
TL;DR: A review of the intergovernmental panel on climate change report on global warming and the greenhouse effect can be found in this paper, where the authors present chemistry of greenhouse gases and mathematical modelling of the climate system.
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.
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El Niño, La Niña, and the southern oscillation
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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