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2017-03-19 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Save the Coral Reefs!
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Posted by Bobby 2017-03-19 11:55|| || Front Page|| [4 views ]  Top

#1 It's actually quite easy to rebuild bleached coral reefs -- marine biologists have been doing it off Belize for over a decade, and no doubt elsewhere as well. Link
Posted by trailing wife 2017-03-19 15:47||   2017-03-19 15:47|| Front Page Top

#2 Kill Vibrio Sp.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-03-19 15:59||   2017-03-19 15:59|| Front Page Top

#3 But TW, as they say, where's the graft in that?
Posted by CrazyFool 2017-03-19 16:09||   2017-03-19 16:09|| Front Page Top

#4 Stop ocean dumping of NYC garbage.
Posted by Skidmark 2017-03-19 16:11||   2017-03-19 16:11|| Front Page Top

#5 Across the world, scores of brilliantly colored coral reefs once teeming with life have in recent years become desolate, white graveyards

"GAH! White privilege even kills coral reefs! When will it stopppp :-( "
Posted by Frank G 2017-03-19 16:19||   2017-03-19 16:19|| Front Page Top

#6 #5 Across the world, scores of brilliantly colored coral reefs once teeming with life have in recent years become desolate, white graveyards

Fishing with explosives tends to do that.

Agricultural runoff is the main problem with the Great Barrier Reef. The Ningaloo Reef (the longest continous coral reef in the world) on my side of Australia has no bleaching, as there is no agriculture on the adjacent land. A lot of feral sheep and goats though.
Posted by phil_b 2017-03-19 18:47||   2017-03-19 18:47|| Front Page Top

#7 As I understand it "coral" is naturally white, and is incapable of making (or extracting) its own food. The color comes from external organisms that "colonize" it, and which can make their own food - mostly by photosynthesis. The coral is parasitic, and draws nutrients from the colonizing organisms. But - the organisms pose some hazard to the coral, if they "get out of control". If the environment gets TOO friendly to the organisms, they flourish to the point where the coral "loses control" - and the coral the EXPELS the organisms to protect itself, This expulsion does not kill the coral - nor do local environmental conditions - but without resident organisms, the coral slowly starves to death.

So - coral likes depleted conditions, which are just barely bountiful enough for resident organisms to barely survive - in weakened state - so that the coral can exploit them. When local conditions IMPROVE sufficiently to make the organisms strong and comfortable, they overpower the coral, and the coral is forced to kick them out This does not "bleach" the coral - it just results in the coral returning to its natural color, sans "external" inhabitants.
Posted by Lone Ranger 2017-03-19 20:44||   2017-03-19 20:44|| Front Page Top

#8 Thanks for that Ranger.
Posted by Besoeker 2017-03-19 21:46||   2017-03-19 21:46|| Front Page Top

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