[Coral-List] he GBR is in trouble, but not dead

[Sander Scheffers]

Not all is bad,

We have been able to spawn many corals yesterday and growth rates of our corals are averaging 1cm extension/wk for Acros.

All of this is done in Cairns for sustainable aquaculture.

Maybe with increased growth and more frequent spawning we can actually adapt certain corals to climate change scenarios.

We can fast grow and multiple spawn GBR corals in a land based facility.

Should we adapt corals to higher temps and lower pH, (because maybe we can) and get grants to put them out to the reef?

Is it desirable or ethical?

If you have ideas, input or general directions on this, please let us know


Dr. Sander Scheffers

Senior Lecturer (Hoogleraar), School of Environment, Science & Engineering, Southern Cross University

Honorary Research Fellow, University of Queensland, QLD, Australia

Associate Researcher, Caribbean Institute for Biodiversity (CARMABI), Curacao, Netherlands Antilles

Military Rd, Lismore NSW 2477
T: 02 6620 3277<tel:02%206620%203277> | E: sander.scheffers at scu.edu.au<mailto:sander.scheffers at scu.edu.au>
CRICOS Provider: 01241G

On 23 Mar 2017, at 22:55, Ed Blume <eblume2702 at gmail.com<mailto:eblume2702 at gmail.com>> wrote:

"Senile reef" will morph into "zombie reef" - part dead, part alive, and
snagging unsuspecting ships.

Ed Blume
​Moderator, coralfree-freeforall at yahoogroups.com<mailto:coralfree-freeforall at yahoogroups.com>

On Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 9:51 AM, Eugene Shinn <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu<mailto:eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>>
wrote:

Ellen Prager points out a significant problem when dealing with the
press.If you are not careful you can easily get burned by an over
zealous environmental writer and headline writer. She rightly makes the
point that headlines for a story are often written by specialist other
than the writer who wrote the story. The headline is written to grab the
attention of the reader. Remember they are also in the business of
selling newspapers and as the reader knows, readership is suffering and
newspapers are going out of business almost daily. Some years ago I was
badly burned by some lurid headlines. At that time writers received
extra cash if the Associated Press picks up their story and passes it on
to other newspapers.Each paper that picked up my story about the effect
of sewage nutrients on coral reefs created ever more eye-catching
headlines. “Sewage killing reefs scientist says.” The results were
unhappy calls from dive shop owners in the keys whose dive trips were
being cancelled because clients did not want to dive in poop. It was
most embarrassing.

Reef researchers have for years wrestled with how to define reefs.
Biologists and geologists see reefs differently and the average reader
can become confused by terms like bioherm, biostrome, or even live rock.
Remember when that big tanker grounded on “Bligh Reef” in Cook inlet
Alaska? So-called Bligh reef is simply a submerged mountaintop. It is
not a reef but the confusion affected people in the Florida Keys who did
not know the difference. Even sandbars have been called reefs. In fact
anything that a ship can ground on is often called a reef. It’s just
maritime lore.

We discuss this problem in detail in our upcoming book, “Geology of the
Florida Keys,” coauthored by Barbara Lidz. In the book we invented a
term for dead or almost dead reefs originally used by Lidz in her
extensive USGS review of Florida Keys Geology,
<http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/2007/1751> For lack of a better term we called
reefs no longer growing “senile reefs.” We can’t predict what a news
writer might do with that term but we could not think of anything better
at the time. As many readers know, Florida reefs are indeed suffering
senility. Hopefully most will recover their former vitality. It will be
interesting to see what a news writer might do with those terms, or for
that matter, readers of the coral-list. Lets see, “Reefs in the keys
can’t think straight” or “they forget who they are.” Gene

--


No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
University of South Florida
College of Marine Science Room 221A
140 Seventh Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
<eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu<mailto:eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>>
Tel 727 553-1158
---------------------------------- -----------------------------------

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