[Coral-List] Causes of coral bleaching

[shashank Keshavmurthy]

Hi phanor....
we were discussing just sbout the same topic last
week.  Its not just the variation in temperature
that results in coral bleachng.  It can be any
sort of stress.  It all depends on how better the
coral and ultimately the zooxnathellae are
resistant to various stressors.  Bleaching may
occur due to variation in salinity, hight light
intensity, sedimentation etc.  Ultimately, if one
sees form Zooxanthellae's point of view...it all
comes to how long it can prevent damage to its
PSII mechanism.  You can go through Tracy Saxby's
literature review titled,"Coral Bleaching: The
Synergistic  Effects of Temperature and 
Photoinhibition, 2000, A literature review
submitted to the Department of Botany,  The
University of Queensland, Page 12.  Avaliable
through AIIMS website in publications page.  This
is the reason why one can see inter- and
intraspecific variation in coral bleaching.  It
is a complex web of resistant zooxnathellae
strain and the Host defence mechanisms.

Cheers!!!
shashank


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"the role of infinitely small in nature is infinitely large"-Louis Pasteur                

Keshavmurthy Shashank
Kochi University, Faculty of Agriculture
Lab. of AQUa. Environ. Sci. (LAQUES)
Otsu 200, Monobe, Nankoku-shi
783-8502, Kochi, Japan
alt. id: shashank at cc.kochi-u.ac.jp
phone: 81 090 8285 9012