Corals Struggling Under Multiple Stressors Due Climate Change

Researchers studying corals from the University of Miami - Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science recently found multiple stressors that may have caused much of the damage to corals. These findings, as published by the Inter-Research Science Center's Marine Ecology Progress Series are shown to have implications as to how the coral reefs are going to be able to survive climate change.

The school's researchers tested the corals' response to multiple environmental stressors by putting them in an environment that mimicked the high acidification conditions in the ocean for two months. After the preconditioning, half of the corals were subjected to increased water temperature for anoter two months. Following their five-month period under the study, researchers then studied their growth and feeding rates, as well as their photochemical efficiency to be able to understand how they respond to environmental stressors.

Corals that are preconditioned to high CO2 levels before they increased temperatures showed that they have 44 percent longer growth rates compared to those that experienced a single stress. This shows that preconditioning the corals to elevated CO2 levels worsens their response to thermal stress and could potentially worsen the effects of climate change on the coral reefs.

Erica Towle, the study's lead author spoke with Phys.org and said that the study is similar to the possible experiences that corals will have to undergo in next few decades."The findings improve our understanding of how reefs will respond to climate change in the future."

In other coral-related issues, the Smithsonian Institution noted that some people have been doing much as they can to continue protecting these ocean creatures for the past few years. Due to the damage and struggle that the coral reefs experience, it has been a challenge for them to grow back, which is why coral gardeners in Fiji have been trying to raise them in a sort of coral greenhouse to help rebuild damaged reefs.

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