[Coral-List] Ocean acidification is simply a bandwagon.

[Ove Hoegh-Guldberg]

Thanks Billy. You make some excellent points here, especially regarding the invisible influences/impacts of ocean acidification. This point of view resonates with the open overlooked importance of sub chronic heat stress.  Lots of temperature influences/impacts on growth, reproduction and disease susceptibility which go unnoticed as we are mesmerised by the large-scale visual impacts of mass coral bleaching and mortality.

Cheers,  Ove

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
Global Change Institute
University of Queensland

From: Billy Causey [mailto:billy.causey at noaa.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, 14 February 2012 3:08 AM
To: Drew Harvell
Cc: Ove Hoegh-Guldberg; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov; Katharina Fabricius
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Ocean acidification is simply a bandwagon.

Drew, Ove, Katharina, John and Alina,
First of all .... a belated Happy New Year to each of you!

What an incredibly entertaining and enlightening exchange you all have generated for all of us on the Coral List.  You are all on my list of global coral reef heroes .... along with a few microbiologists..... and I wanted to respond.

Alina ... you began with a very clear and well-articulated history of coral decline as it has been "all due to dramatic and prolonged elevated seawater temperature events."  I couldn't agree with you more, except in the Florida Keys where we first began observing the impacts of elevated seasurface temperatures in the late 1970's when vast numbers of Xestospongia died off in areas where they were exposed to warm Florida Bay waters. And again in 1980 when we had 6 weeks of slick-calm, doldrum water conditions and 10's of thousands of reef fish died over a month timeframe.  And our first massive coral bleaching event in 1983, that occured between Looe Key and Western Dry Rocks off Key West, in an area that once again was exposed to elevated water temperatures.  And let's not forget that Panama was experiencing record high water temperatures in November and December of 1982, before the die-off of the Diadema was observed by Harias Lessios in January 1983.

Could it be that the combination of elevated seasurface temperatures, increased microbial activity and perhaps conditions exacerbated by increased nutrients in coastal waters set the stage early on for what we are now experiencing on coral reefs around the world...... with about 12 years of delay in the Indo-West Pacific?  You have all heard me say this in the past.

My intention with this posting on the Coral List is to point out that I am concerned with the level of debate about Ocean Acidification.  The science is in front of us and it is "real" and is happening in hot spots around the globe.  My concern is that when the coral reefs were turning stark white (bleaching) from elevated temperatures, we still witnessed an impossible scientific debate about the "cause of coral decline" ....with some never admitting that elevated sea surface temperatures played a role.  This debate gave decision-makers a reason to not make decisions and the public was largely split on whether or not climate change was real .... all the while occurring at a time when we could point to bleached reefs and predict coral diseases would be occurring on the stressed corals right behind the coral bleaching events.

Ocean Acidification will not be as visible as hectares of bleached coral reefs.  We will not be able to see it coming like we can when reefs turn stark white.  It will be more insidious in it's approach and impact.  It will be difficult to motivate the dive industry, fishermen or other waterfront communities until it is on top of us.  Marinelife will be responding to lower pH long before we can visually observe what is happening.  We will not have the luxury of a long scientific debate as we have had with climate change/coral bleaching etc.  Even though OA and climate change are related .... how can we ever convince the lay-public that the oceans they know are changing dramatically.

I am seriously concerned about the impacts of Ocean Acidification and am beginning to anecdotally think that we may have experienced some of it in the two semi-enclosed basins of the Wider Caribbean (Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico) already.  OA scientists have pointed out that OA can occur in hot spots, especially where large amounts of dissolved organic carbon enters the sea.  Just perhaps, the semi-enclosed Wider Caribbean may have responded to climate change 12 years before the Pacific reefs due to their exposure to elevated seasurface temperatures and runoff from vast numbers of tributaries.

Now ... I have thrown some concerns out for the Coral List ... and a few ideas.  Perhaps this email thread can lead to other questions being asked and greater research and scientific findings.  But in the meantime, why not target the reduction of greenhouse gases?  It's not only applying the precautionary principal ....but it is common sense.

Cheers, billy




On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 5:19 PM, Drew Harvell <cdh5 at cornell.edu<mailto:cdh5 at cornell.edu>> wrote:
Hey Alina, Katharina, Ove and list,  I thought this was a good exchange. I didn't agree with Alina for the reasons Katharina beautifully articulated, but I did appreciate her getting a very clear view stated. And I do respect that view, given that she has had her hand in OA work and the caliber of her work. And I sometimes also agree with the frustration about OA-- that we are so overwhelmed with the immediacy of the huge temperature impacts on coral reefs, that for some tropical oceans, OA lags a bit as the top priority. But of course, increasing OA is  the very unpleasant reason that we cannot expect corals to simply expand their ranges over a 50-100 year range in response to high temperature stress, because just as they get settled in rising OA will catch up with them.

The other problem is that there are parts of the oceans where OA is a priority issue NOW. I work part of the year in the US pacific northwest (San Juan Islands, Washington)-- a region where seriously low PH water is already upwelling and causing significant impacts for oysters, as an example. Some oyster hatcheries have needed to completely treat their water for low PH and there have been field mortality events of settling oyster.  We may also find these corrosive waters are affecting fertilization success and larval development of many critters, although that is hard to pinpoint in the field.

Best, Drew

Drew Harvell
Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future
Cornell University

On Feb 10, 2012, at 4:16 PM, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg wrote:

> Well said Katharina.  I was in the middle of writing a similar e-mail response to point out the misquote.  I have scrapped that effort now you have pointed out the problem so clearly.  Maybe Alina and others might also benefit from looking at the output of the recent IPCC special workshop on ocean acidification (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/supporting-material/IPCC_IAOMBE_WorkshopReport_Japan.pdf).  This report reviews the issue carefully and objectively, trying to get an understanding of the current state of knowledge on ocean acidification and its implications. Given this, I hardly think that current research efforts are simply a short-term bandwagon effect. Given the fundamental and long-lived nature of the chemical changes that we are currently making to the world's oceans, it is an imperative that we thoroughly understand the implications and potential impacts.
>
> Cheers, Ove
>
> Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
> Global Change Institute
> University of Queensland
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>] On Behalf Of Katharina Fabricius
> Sent: Friday, 10 February 2012 10:22 PM
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Objective Science?
>
>
>
> Katharina
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Dr. Katharina Fabricius
> Principal Research Scientist
> Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS)
> Mail: AIMS, PMB 3, Townsville Q4810, Australia
>
> Phone: +61 -7 4753 4412<tel:%2B61%20-7%204753%204412>;  Mobile: 0428 713845;  Fax: +61 -7 4772 5852<tel:%2B61%20-7%204772%205852>
> Email: k.fabricius at aims.gov.au<mailto:k.fabricius at aims.gov.au>
> ________________________________________
> From: Katharina Fabricius
> Sent: Friday, 10 February 2012 11:54
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: RE: Coral-List Digest, Vol 42, Issue 7
>
> Hi Alina cc Coral Listers,
>
> Can I point out that your posting mis-quoted the De'ath et al (2009) study, when you said "I think that papers like the D'eath et al Science paper last year, that with NO EVIDENCE to support their statements, in their discussions invoking OA as THE cause for the decreased rate of calcification they observed".
>
> In the De'ath paper we say (verbatim) "The causes of the decline remain unknown; however, this study suggests that increasing temperature stress and a declining saturation state of seawater aragonite may be diminishing the ability of GBR corals to deposit calcium carbonate."    Our lines or argument that both temperature and OA may be involved are spelled out in a long section in the discussion that deals with the potential alternative causes and experimental evidence.
>
> Your posting also ignores the follow-up findings from Fabricius et al (2011): we found 30% lower than expected rates of calcification in massive Porites around three CO2 seeps and three control sites in Papua New Guinea. At the seeps, colonies likely had a lifetime of exposure to high CO2 (same temperature and same salinity as control sites). We found all sorts of changes in the coral reef community composition along the CO2 gradients, clearly showing that high CO2 can seriously alter reef communities and hence that OA is anything but a "recent band wagon". But we found only small differences in the rates of calcification in massive Porites between high and low pCO2 sites. We concluded:  "The similar and low calcification rates at the high and low pCO2 sites suggest that calcification in massive Porites is relatively insensitive to a reduction to pH up to 7.8, and that another factor (possibly temperature stress) has had a stronger effect on calcification.." [We then presen
 t
> evidence for the temperature stress].
>
> Your posting also ignores the potential for regional differences in the relative effects of warming and OA, today and in the longer term: some regions have been hit by bleaching far harder than others to date. Although the Great Barrier Reef had mass bleaching events in 1998 and 2002, we fortunately lost far fewer corals to bleaching than some other regions. But yes, GBR reefs are nevertheless temperature stressed.
>
> It's important to remember that massive Porites are by far the toughest corals in the Indo-Pacific and hence very conservative indicators for the effects of global changes on our coral reefs. Our PNG study concluded that massive Porites will be the 'winners' in a globally changing environment - but only up to a point: Porites cover and reef development completely ceased where seawater pH was <7.7, and temperature stress will continue to affect the growth and survival even of these tough taxa. Our replicated observational data at the PNG seeps suggested strongly that although Porites calcification was mostly affected by temperature stress, the abundances of all sorts of other measures of a healthy reef (including structural corals, coralline algae and coral recruit densities and diversity) gradually decline to zero as pH declines, and many of them start declining even at slightly reduced pH.
>
> My point is: We certainly have enough evidence to conclude that high CO2 will affect coral reefs - OA is not a band wagon. And I don't believe we have enough field and experimental data yet to make a convincing stand whether, where and from when on temperature will hit reefs harder than OA, or vice versa. Rising temperatures and declining pH have both already started to seriously affect coral reefs, and some effects may well be synergistic. Temperature is fluctuating due to weather patterns, so temperature stress events on tropical reefs will be both acute and chronic, whereas OA is a gradually creeping change in the ocean chemistry that will be irreversible for many many hundreds of years.
>
> Best regards
>
> Katharina Fabricius
>
> References:
> De'ath G, Lough JM, Fabricius KE (2009) Declining coral calcification on the Great Barrier Reef. Science 323: 116-119 Fabricius KE, Langdon C, Uthicke S, Humphrey C, Noonan S, De'ath G, Okazaki R, Muehllehner N, Glas M, Lough JM (2011) Losers and winners in coral reefs acclimatized to elevated carbon dioxide concentrations. Nature Climate Change  1: 165-169
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Dr. Katharina Fabricius
> Principal Research Scientist
> Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS)
> Mail: AIMS, PMB 3, Townsville Q4810, Australia
> Phone: +61 -7 4753 4412<tel:%2B61%20-7%204753%204412>;  Mobile: 0428 713845;  Fax: +61 -7 4772 5852<tel:%2B61%20-7%204772%205852>
> Email: k.fabricius at aims.gov.au<mailto:k.fabricius at aims.gov.au>
> -----Original Message-----
> Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2012 09:03:39 -0500
> From: "Szmant, Alina" <szmanta at uncw.edu<mailto:szmanta at uncw.edu>>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Objective Science?
> To: Bill Allison <allison.billiam at gmail.com<mailto:allison.billiam at gmail.com>>, GlennPatton
>        <glenn at glennpatton.com<mailto:glenn at glennpatton.com>>
> Cc: Coral List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>>
> Message-ID:
>        <68ECDB295FC42D4C98B223E75A854025D9F3F8605D at uncwexmb2.dcs.uncw.edu<mailto:68ECDB295FC42D4C98B223E75A854025D9F3F8605D at uncwexmb2.dcs.uncw.edu>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> I have watched the coral reefs of Florida, Puerto Rico, MBRS and more recently southern Caribbean lose coral cover year after year since the 1987 major bleaching event, all due to dramatic and prolonged elevated seawater temperature events.  We have now shown that development and settlement  of two dominant coral  species (Acropora palmata and Montastraea faveolata) are seriously affected by temperatures as low as 30 degrees C, and thus spawn from the surviving adult colonies when they do reproduce, will result in fewer larvae and reduced settlement potential.  In my opinion, based on over two decades watching Caribbean corals die from elevated temperature, I think that ocean acidification (OA) is a minor player in the future health of Caribbean coral reefs.  It doesn't kill corals, just slows calcification a bit, and in some species not at all.  The levels of OA that are being used in lab experiments to demonstrate an effect on calcification are soooo next century, and by
 th
> en, elevated temperature will have decimated coral populations even more.   There won't be many corals left to be affected by decreased pH, and maybe the survivors will be the ones that are not affected by decreased pH.
> In my opinion,  OA is just the most recent band wagon for short attention spanners who got bored of working on temperature effects.  But OA has some big names promoting its significance (good way to loosen up $$ and other currencies), and the band wagon marches on.  I think that papers like the D'eath et al Science paper last year, that with NO EVIDENCE to support their statements, in their discussions invoking OA as THE cause for the decreased rate of calcification they observed in their cores since 1990, during a decade when corals were frequently bleached and stressed by temperature (both of which cause decreased calcification), are totally irresponsible, and makes me totally doubt our current peer review system.  [I could write a whole lot more about everything that is wrong and poorly done in this paper but will stop here].  There is nothing that ticks me off more than bad science!!!
> *************************************************************************
> Dr. Alina M. Szmant
> Professor of Marine Biology
> Center for Marine Science and Dept of Biology and Marine Biology University of North Carolina Wilmington
> 5600 Marvin Moss Ln
> Wilmington NC 28409 USA
> tel:  910-962-2362<tel:910-962-2362>  fax: 910-962-2410<tel:910-962-2410>  cell: 910-200-3913<tel:910-200-3913> http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta
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Drew Harvell
Professor
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Telephone:  (607) 254-4274<tel:%28607%29%20254-4274>
Email:  cdh5 at cornell.edu<mailto:cdh5 at cornell.edu>
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Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future
216 Rice Hall, Telephone: (607) 255-0091<tel:%28607%29%20255-0091>
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Will Our Grandchildren Remember Us For What We Conserved and Protected or For What We Let Slip Away?