(Press-News.org) The more humanity acidifies and warms the world's oceans with carbon emissions, the harder we will have to work to save our coral reefs.
That's the blunt message from a major new study by an international scientific team, which finds that ocean acidification and global warming will combine with local impacts like overfishing and nutrient runoff to weaken the world's coral reefs right when they are struggling to survive.
Modelling by a team led by Dr Ken Anthony of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland's Global Change Institute has found that reefs already overfished and affected by land runoff are likely to be more vulnerable to increasing CO2 in the atmosphere caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
Their study is the first to integrate global scale processes, such as warming and acidification, with the local factors overfishing and runoff, to predict the combined impact on coral reefs.
"As CO2 levels climb to 450-500 parts per million – as they are now expected to do by 2050 – how well we manage local impacts on reefs like fishing and runoff will become absolutely critical as to whether they survive as coral reefs, or are overtaken by algae that compete with corals for space on reefs," Dr Anthony says.
Warmer conditions cause periodic mass coral deaths by bleaching, while acidifying sea water – due to CO2 dissolving out of the atmosphere – weakens the corals by interfering with their ability to form their skeletons, making them more vulnerable to impact by storms. If the corals are also affected by heavy nutrient runoff from the land – which fertilizes the algae – and overfishing of parrot fishes and others that keep the reefs clear of weed, then corals can struggle to re-establish after a setback, he explains. "In those situations, the reef can become completely overgrown by algae."
The team's modelling, which they say is on the conservative side, has far-reaching implications for the preservation even of well-managed reefs such as Australia's Great Barrier Reef – and extremely serious implications for reefs in developing countries, where most reefs are located and where reefs face high levels of stress from human activities.
"Put simply, our model indicates that the more CO2 we humans liberate, the harder it will become for coral reefs, as we know them, to survive. This means they will need all the help they can get in the way of good management to prevent their being overgrown by sea weeds," he adds.
"Coral reefs in developing nations, where most of the world's reefs occur and overfishing and nutrification remain key concerns, are particularly vulnerable, highlighting the need to continue to build capacity amongst reef managers and governments in areas like SE Asia," the team warns in their report, which was recently published in the journal Global Change Biology.
"A failure to rapidly stabilize and reduce the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere is likely to lead to significant loss of key (coral) framework builders such as Acropora, irrespective of the effectiveness of local management," the scientists conclude.
"However local reef management efforts to maintain high grazing fish populations and prevent runoff of silt, fertilisers and sewage from the land will play a critical role in maintaining coral resilience while CO2 concentrations are stabilized", they add.
The study, which is the first to quantify the relative importance of carbon emissions and local disturbances in compromising reef health, can be used to optimise future management practises of coral reefs. It makes clear that both policy changes on emissions and local management measures are required to secure a future for coral reefs.
INFORMATION:
Their paper, "Ocean acidification and warming will lower coral reef resilience" by Kenneth R Anthony, Jeffery A Maynard, Guillermo Diaz-Pulido, Peter J Mumby, Paul A Marshall, Long Cao and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg appears in Global Change Biology (2011).
More information:
Dr Ken Anthony, CoECRS and UQ, ph +61 (0)7 3346 9154, mobile +61 (0)427 177 290
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 (0)7 4781 4222 or +61 417 741 638
Jim O'Brien, James Cook University Media Office, +61 (0)7 4781 4822 or 0418 892449
Jan King, UQ Communications Manager, +61 (0)7 3365 1120
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/
CoECRS are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.
END
Monday, February 14, 2011 – Cleveland – Researchers from Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute have discovered that resveratrol – a compound found in red wine – when combined with rapamycin can have a tumor-suppressing effect on breast cancer cells that are resistant to rapamycin alone.
The research – recently published in Cancer Letters – also indicates that the PTEN tumor-suppressing gene contributes to resveratrol's anti-tumor effects in this treatment combination.
Charis Eng, MD, Ph.D., Chair of the Genomic Medicine Institute of Cleveland Clinic's Lerner ...
Nonmilitary personnel serving in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were more likely to be evacuated with non–war-related injuries and more likely to return to duty after such injuries compared with military personnel, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj100244.pdf.
About 50% of personnel serving in Iraq and around two-thirds in Afghanistan are nonmilitary.
"Nonmilitary personnel play an increasingly critical role in modern wars," writes Dr. Steven P. Cohen, Johns ...
New clinical guidelines for use of noninvasive ventilation in critical care settings are published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj100071.pdf.
The use of noninvasive positive-pressure ventilation and noninvasive continuous positive airway pressure by mask has increased significantly among acutely ill patients. A growing body of literature and variations in practice in recent years have necessitated the development of new clinical practical guidelines to help manage patients with acute respiratory distress ...
A recent outbreak of tuberculosis in Nunavut, with a population infection rate 62 times the Canadian average, points to a need to rebuild trust in public health to combat the disease, states an editorial published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj110160.pdf.
Nunavut is Canada's third territory in the eastern Arctic, created in 1999. Its population is about 30,000 people, and almost 80% are Inuit, spread over an area of more than 2 million square kilometers.
At least 100 new active cases of tuberculosis ...
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Measurements of hand movement control may help determine the severity of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children, according to joint studies published in the February 15, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. ADHD is a brain disorder characterized by impulsiveness, hyperactivity, such as not being able to sit still, and inattention or difficulty staying focused.
The studies were led by Stewart H. Mostofsky, MD, with the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore and Donald L. Gilbert, ...
New research shows that all not mammals are created equal. In fact, this work shows that the animals most commonly used by scientists to study mammalian genetics -- mice -- develop unusually quickly and may not always be representative of embryonic development in other mammals. The study, published by Cell Press in the February 14 issue of the journal Developmental Cell, identifies significant differences in the timing of cell fate commitment during mouse and cattle embryonic development and raises important strategic implications for the generation of embryonic stem cells.
The ...
After analyzing data on 2,155 private contractors, diplomats and other civilians supporting war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan who were medically evacuated out of combat zones, researchers have found they are more likely to be evacuated for noncombat-related injuries, but more likely to return to work in-country after treatment for these conditions.
Still, the findings of the Johns Hopkins-led research team, published online in CMAJ, the journal of the Canadian Medical Association, note that 75 percent of the nonmilitary group medically evacuated from the war zones to ...
BOSTON – February 14, 2011 – Once people develop type 2 diabetes, high blood glucose levels alter their metabolism so much that it becomes difficult to sift through all the clues to find what might enable the disease. "To identify factors that play a primary role in disease susceptibility, we want to investigate people before they get to that point," says Mary-Elizabeth Patti, M.D. of Joslin Diabetes Center. By examining people across the spectrum of diabetes—from healthy to the full-blown disease—scientists in her lab have found a molecular pathway that offers novel targets ...
The newly approved drug dabigatran is an alternative to warfarin to help prevent dangerous blood clots in patients with atrial fibrillation, according to updated guidelines from the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and the Heart Rhythm Society.
The "Focused Update" — published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, Journal of the American College of Cardiology and HeartRhythm Journal — specifically updates the section on emerging antithrombotic agents in atrial fibrillation treatment guidelines released by the three organizations ...
Among women with breast cancer, approximately 25% have a subtype that is characterized by high levels of expression of the protein HER2. HER2-positive breast cancer tends to be more aggressive than other breast cancer subtypes. Increased molecular understanding of why HER2-positive breast cancer is so aggressive could aid in the development of new therapeutics. By studying mouse models, a team of researchers, led by Lewis Chodosh, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, has now identified a key role for the protein Hunk in the formation of tumors ...
