I hope it's not some dark April Fools joke. A new study reveals that some corals can bounce back from such near death experiences caused by heating of the planet, as well as world's waters. The heat death of a reef reveals itself as whitening, dubbed coral bleaching, which results when corals expel the tiny plants that provide food and are responsible for the rainbow of reef colors. In 2014, coral bleaching happened in the northern Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands, the Hawaiian Islands and even the Florida Keys. Severe bleaching has now happened two years in a row off Guam and overheated waters have now appeared off the Pacific island nations of Kiribati and Nauru and are also pooling near the Solomon Islands. However, a new study offers hope. Looking at reefs off two of the central Seychelles isles in the Indian Ocean, scientists from Australia found that reefs could rebound even from severe bleaching events, such as those that whitened more than 90 percent of a given reef in 1998, which was perhaps the most severe coral bleaching event on record. http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...emarkable-ability-to-recover-from-near-death/
We hope that repeated bleaching and longer term bleaching are similarly recoverable, because the Great Barrier Reef is almost completely bleaching as we speak. It isn't going to get years of relief to recover, either. And we kind of need that one. http://www.globalcoralbleaching.org
Recent study finds that snorkelers harm coral reefs more than they realise, and that raising awareness on reef etiquette can help. Snorkelers and scuba divers can unintentionally damage the coral by kicking it with their fins, standing on it, or grabbing hold of it. This contact can break off fragments of coral that took several years to grow, or rub off the coral’s protective layer of tissue and allow an algal infection to set in. http://www.biosphereonline.com/2016/04/15/snorkelers-harm-corals-awareness-helps/
