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Nutrient pollution can exacerbate coral disease outbreaks and threatens coral reef health
November 24, 2003Wildlife diseases are one of the primary threats to coral reefs and other endangered marine ecosystems. For example, fungal and bacterial infections of reef-building corals and other key species recently caused mass-mortalities throughout the Caribbean. Species that dominated Caribbean coral reefs only twenty years ago are now functionally extinct. Little is know about the factors that promote marine diseases, but it is suspected that human activities have altered the environment, subsequently promoting disease epidemics and coral die offs. In the December issue of Ecology Letters, Bruno, Petes, Harvell, and Hettinger report that nutrient pollution can increase the severity of coral diseases. The research team performed field experiments on Mexican reefs off the Yucatan Peninsula, currently threatened by coastal development. Their results indicate that even modest nutrient pollution can increase the mortality of three important Caribbean corals by facilitating disease spread. This research suggests that further steps should be taken to reduce nutrient pollution from sources including agricultural runoff, sewage pollution, and deforestation.
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Coral Reef Current Events and Coral Reef News RSSUrgent action on international coral reef crisis
Coral reef scientists and policy makers from the world's most prominent coral reef nations are meeting in Australia this week to develop urgent action plans to rescue the world's richest centre of marine biodiversity from gradual decline.
Diversity of plant-eating fishes may be key to recovery of coral reefs
For endangered coral reefs, not all plant-eating fish are created equal. A report scheduled to be published this week in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that maintaining the proper balance of herbivorous fishes may be critical to restoring coral reefs, which are declining dramatically worldwide.
Modest CO2 cutbacks may be too little, too late for coral reefs
How much carbon dioxide is too much? According to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) greenhouse gases in the atmosphere need to be stabilized at levels low enough to "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." But scientists have come to realize that an even more acute danger than climate change is lurking in the world's oceans-one that is likely to be triggered by CO2 levels that are modest by climate standards.
Protection zones in the wrong place to prevent coral reef collapse
Conservation zones are in the wrong place to protect vulnerable coral reefs from the effects of global warming, an international team of scientists warned today.
Protection zones in the wrong place to prevent coral reef collapse
Conservation zones are in the wrong place to protect vulnerable coral reefs from the effects of global warming, an international team of scientists warned today.
Shipwrecks on coral reefs harbor unwanted species
Shipwrecks on coral reefs may increase invasion of unwanted species, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey study. These unwanted species can completely overtake the reef and eliminate all the native coral, dramatically decreasing the diversity of marine organisms on the reef.
A recipe for saving the world's oceans from an extinction crisis
Jeremy Jackson, senior scientist emeritus of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, asserts in the Aug. 12 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that the following steps, if taken immediately, could reverse the demise of the oceans: Establish marine reserves, enforce fishing regulations, implement aquaculture, remove subsidies on fertilizer use, muster human ingenuity to limit fossil fuel consumption, buy time by establishing local conservation measures.
Fossil and molecular evidence reveals the history of major marine biodiversity hotspots
The journal "Science" has published in the issue of the 1st of August the results of a detailed research work about the evolution of marine diversity all through the last 50 million years.
Lionfish decimating tropical fish populations, threaten coral reefs
The invasion of predatory lionfish in the Caribbean region poses yet another major threat there to coral reef ecosystems - a new study has found that within a short period after the entry of lionfish into an area, the survival of other reef fishes is slashed by about 80 percent.
Scientists discover new reefs teeming with marine life in Brazil
Scientists announced today the discovery of reef structures they believe doubles the size of the Southern Atlantic Ocean's largest and richest reef system, the Abrolhos Bank, off the southern coast of Brazil's Bahia state. The newly discovered area is also far more abundant in marine life than the previously known Abrolhos reef system, one of the world's most unique and important reefs.
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