Beating Climate Change |

Beating Climate Change

Coral is picky. Too hot, too cold, not enough sunlight, too much sunlight, too much salt in the water, pollution; coral is the Goldilocks of the ocean world.

The area around the Red Sea is one of the hottest, driest places in the world. This leads to high water evaporation, which has made the Red Sea considerably saltier than the rest of the world’s oceans.

So. Hotter, drier, and saltier. Doesn’t sound like prime conditions for coral, but the reefs in the Red Sea are not only surviving–they’re thriving.

The Red Sea is an extension of the Indian Ocean, lying between the Arabian Peninsula and Africa. It’s over 5000 years old, about the size of the US state of California, has about 2000 km of shoreline, and has an average depth of 1600 feet. The only connection to the Indian Ocean is through a narrow strait to the south, which means that the water is generally fairly still and therefore remarkably clear.

Red Sea reefs have very high biodiversity levels. Of the 1200 or so coral reef fish species present, 10% are endemic (found nowhere else). There are also about 300 species of coral. In fact, Red Sea reefs have four times the biodiversity of Caribbean reefs, though they still aren’t the world’s most diverse.

Tourism is an important part of the local economies, but if it isn’t carefully managed, divers can do more damage than nature. A growing number of marine protected areas have been established in the Red Sea to help alleviate some of these problems.

In addition to the inherent benefits to the ecosystem, corals have provided components for medications, including those for cancer and HIV patients.

What’s the secret? Why are reefs in such a hostile environment doing so well? There are a couple different possibilities. One is that as the coral moved into the Red Sea over thousands of years, coming through very hot water naturally selected those that could better survive. Another idea is that there might be a heat resistant algae that exists in coral in the Red Sea. If this algae can be extracted, scientists believe there may be a way of saving coral around the world from devastation.

Sources:

Curriculum Reference Links

Biological World / Building Blocks / 3: Students should be able to outline evolution by natural selection and how it explains the diversity of living things
Biological World / Sustainability / 10: Students should be able to evaluate how humans can successfully conserve ecological biodiversity and contribute to global food production; appreciate the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems

10 Fun Facts: The Hab

1. Aquarius is the the world’s only permanent undersea research station.

2. Most missions last about two or three weeks.

3. Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, beat his grandfather’s record month-long underwater expedition by spending 31 days on the Aquarius Reef Base in 2014.

4. The lab is used by NASA, the US Navy, and researchers and educators from around the globe for training and research.

5. The internet connection is better in the Hab than at many places above the water.

6. You have to swim underneath the facility in order to enter it.

7. Crew members are called aquanauts (NOT aquaNUTS!)

8. In 1994, a crew of scientists and divers had to evacuate Aquarius and climb up a rescue line to the surface in 15-foot seas after one of the habitat’s generators caught fire.

9. Aquarius was featured in the comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon in 2012.

10. The Hab was originally built in Texas.

10 Fun Facts: Coral

1. Reefs usually grow up on the east shore of land masses.

2. Parts of a coral reef can be harvested to make medications to treat cancers and other illnesses.

3. A coral reef isn’t a single organism; it’s actually a community of life that lives and thrives in one location.

4. Only about one percent of the world’s oceans contain coral reefs. That’s about the size of France.

5. Coral reefs are the largest biological structures on earth.

6. Corals are related to jellyfish and anemones.

7. There are over 2,500 species of corals. About 1,000 are the hard corals that build coral reefs.

8. Reefs grow where there are stronger wave patterns and currents to deliver food and nutrients.

9. The Great Barrier Reef is 500,000 years old.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10 Fun Facts: Invasive Species

1. To be considered invasive, a species must adapt to a new area easily. It must reproduce quickly. It must harm property, the economy, or the native plants and animals of the region.

2. Some invasive species are introduced accidentally, but others are brought deliberately.

3. Ship ballast water transports between 3,000 and 7,000 foreign species daily around the globe.

4. The total loss to the world economy as a result of invasive non-native species has been estimated at 5% of annual production

5. Invasive species have contributed to 40% of the animal extinctions that have occurred in the last 400 years.

6. Rodents are some of the worst invasive species.

7. There are an estimated 50,000 wild ring-necked parakeets in parks across London and southeast England.

8. Black and Norway rats annually consume stored grains and destroy other property valued over $19 billion.

9. Northern Pacific seastars reproduce very quickly. In one area where they were introduced, their population reached an estimated 12 million seastars in just two years.

10. Starlings were introduced to New York in the late 1800s, as part of an attempt to bring animals that were mentioned in Shakespeare‘s work to America.

Back to Hablog