[Coral-List] Fwd: Coral reefs under threat

Thu Jul 27 19:27:40 UTC 2023

Dear Colleagues,

When we identify causes of degradation, we include climate change as global
anthropogenic pollution and local impacts both caused by unsustainable
development.  Therefore both are caused by intensive human activities that
should be managed appropriately. That is why we support campaigns of global
behavior change at the United Nations implementing SDG 14 and SDG13. Coral
reef scientists and in general Coral Listers should lead by example to
avoid further greenhouse gases emissions and destructive development,
effective solutions need to find alternatives to stop global and local
coral reef threats.

The recent 100% mortality events in the Florida Keys are a result of
cumulative stress from multiple factors. That is why we support addressing
the causes of degradation, INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ONLY in palliative care or
scaling up breaking coral colonies.

Taking into account, Sutherland et al. (2023) while high temperature has
been identified as an important cause of coral mortality in both bleaching
and disease scenarios, a predictive model for White Pox Disease (WPX) risk
in Acropora palmata (using 20 yr of disease surveys from the Florida Keys
plus environmental information collected simultaneously in situ and via
satellite) indicates that the relative influence of HotSpot (positive
summertime temperature anomaly) was low and actually inversely related to
WPX Risk. https://doi.org/10.3354/dao03727
Nohora Galvis
ICRS World Reef Award Winner
ICRO Transdisciplinary Researcher
International Coral Reef Observatory
Follow us on Facebook.com/ICRObservatory
on Twitter / Instagram / YouTube  ICR_Observatory

---------- Forwarded message ---------
De: International Coral Reef Observatory <icrobservatory at gmail.com>
Date: mar, 25 jul 2023 a las 17:12
Subject: Coral reefs under threat
To: Austin Bowden-Kerby <abowdenkerby at gmail.com>, <helder.perez at gmail.com>,
Sebastian Szereday <seb.szereday at gmail.com>, <nicrane at cabrillo.edu>, <
jlang at riposi.net>, Alina Szmant <alina at cisme-instruments.com>, <
sealab at earthlink.net>, Mark Tupper <mark.tupper at port.ac.uk>, coral list <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>

In agreement with Judith, Alina and Nicole, there is an alert for
interventions on coral reefs that promise to save them but it may
actually may worsen the coral reef integrity.

Reading carefully the paper: The Influence of Foureye Butterflyfish
(Chaetodon capistratus) and Symbiodiniaceae on the Transmission of
Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, Titus et al. (2022) have some
suggestive evidence that butterflyfish do not directly increase
infection rates, but instead might be increasing infection recovery
   https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.800423/full

Increased coral mucus is a proof of stressed coral colonies.
Considering Austin´s  message, if something has to be removed
drastically from affected coral reefs is not the mucus eaters but the
scaling up of coral fragmentation megaprojects that stress coral
colonies and support unsustainable development (massive tourism,
increased population in coral reef areas, enlargement of ports,
channels, airports, prisons, etc).

Taking into account that past local authorities in some case studies
have stopped plans such as a prison in the Swan Island and an
international airport on Tioman Island in Malaysia. The International
Coral Reef Initiative, the International Coral Reef Society, the
Society for Conservation Biology and UN SDG 14 envoys amongs many
other organziations should play a more active role addressing the
current decision makers of each country with respect and diplomatic
SCIENTIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS according to their mission to avoid further
catastrophes. Calling to actions to protect effectively life below
water in coral reef areas of the world that will benefit all human
beings.

We as an International Coral Reef Observatory, are ready to support
with letters if requested, to the top decision makers and shared the
case studies where coral reefs are under threat, as well tagging in
our social media the organizations encharged of the effective
protection of coral reefs to promote global friendly environmental
behavior and positive change to improve the conservation of coral
reefs of the world.

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN TRYING TO CURE (or trying to restore
afterwards) !! It is time to find alternatives to those developers who
have coral reefs in the military target destroying ecosystems. The
Blue Economy should not be based on paying A LOT to the justifiers of
degradation, because the environmental cost will be higher sooner or
later.

Nohora Galvis
ICRS World Reef Award Winner
ICRO Transdisciplinary Researcher
International Coral Reef Observatory
Follow us on Facebook.com/ICRObservatory
on Twitter / Instagram / YouTube  ICR_Observatory

El mar, 25 jul 2023 a las 15:07, Austin Bowden-Kerby via Coral-List
(<coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>) escribió:
>
> Hi Alina,
>
> It's okay to be negative, as that is what scientists do- LOL!  I
> understand completely. Less is best is what we all believe in.  So
> your response is the sort of knee-jerk response I have come to expect.
> I have been accused of "playing GOD" with coralliophila snail removal
> in the Caribbean and Acanthaster removal in the Pacific in earlier
> days as well.  Plus butterflyfish are beautiful, and they look so
> gentle and innocent, and so I can understand that people's hearts
> would tend to dominate their heads on this one.
>
> However, the corals have taken millions of years to evolve and their
> future is on the line!  So if butterfly fish have even a slight chance
> of being a primary means for transfer of SCTLD, the precautionary
> principle in favor of the endangered species would remove them. If we
> wait for all the facts to be published in peer reviewed journals, it
> could be too late.  There are so few of the corals left, that removal
> would translate to killing only a few hundred of the fish regionally.
> The danger we face is not just to the Caribbean: coral reefs of
> perhaps the entire planet are potentially at risk, due to the
> ineffectiveness of ballast water protocols, so certainly any risk to a
> few coral predators is insignificant to the overall protection of the
> corals of the planet.
>
> In addition to the published Noonan and Childress study, establishing
> the 4-eyes as potentially problematic, in 2004 in Honduras and Belize,
> we found that the 4-eyes were the primary vector in the rapid tissue
> loss disease in Acropora.   It appeared that they were intentionally
> spreading the disease, so the tissues would lift off or something!
> They would bite an infected area and then a non-diseased neighboring
> branch and alternate.  However, a later paper by Noonan et al.
> suggests that the fish might remove diseased tissues and therefore
> help in the healing as well.  However the fish do not confine their
> feeding to the dead tissues, so while it could indeed help the lesions
> by removing infected tissues, at the same time it bites non infected
> tissues and colonies, and thus is a prime suspect as a major vector in
> spreading the disease.
>
> With any emerging problem like this, we must grab what we can and run
> with it. But the precautionary principle has resulted in a paralysis
> of will, as it is being interpreted wrongly, that to do nothing is
> better than to err on the side of over-reacting.  We wait for peer
> reviewed publications, which take years to come out, and we tend to
> discount observations and unpublished work.  I find the same
> conservativeness when dealing with mass coral death due to bleaching-
> and there is no emergency working group to address mass coral
> bleaching either, no pile of funds to use for experimental
> interventions during active events.  The failure of the system to
> control this disease and to address mass bleaching threatens the coral
> reefs of the entire planet, and this reflects poorly on the scientific
> community.  Massive funding for urgent research and action was needed
> five years ago, to include sampling of genotypes of the species
> affected to secure them in land-based systems, predator/ vector
> removal experiments, and the like.
>
> Back to the Titanic analogy: The ship is sinking, and our operating
> system requires that all lifeboats be fully inspected and proven
> seaworthy before we allow them to be launched and for people to board
> them, normally a good policy.  But the ship is now sinking rapidly,
> but we continue as normal, as the system requires that all lifeboats
> must be adequately inspected before launching!  The passengers that we
> are supposed to be saving are now drowning.... so it is time to break
> the rules, even if some lifeboats have holes in them and start
> sinking, we can repair them as we go!
>
> Regards
>
> Austin
>
> Noonan, K.R., Childress, M.J. Association of butterflyfishes and stony
> coral tissue loss disease in the Florida Keys. Coral Reefs 39,
> 1581–1590 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-020-01986-8
>
> The Influence of Foureye Butterflyfish (Chaetodon capistratus) and
> Symbiodiniaceae on the Transmission of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease
> Kara Titus, Lauren O’Connell, Kristiaan Matthee, Michael Childress
> Front. Mar. Sci., 21 March 2022.  Sec. Coral Reef Research Volume 9 -
> 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.800423
>
>
>
> Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
> Corals for Conservation
> P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands