[Coral-List] 82 coral species listing
Gene Shinn
eshinn at marine.usf.edu
Tue Jul 10 15:21:35 EDT 2012
I am sitting on my boat in Marathon Florida Having just completed
photographing my two main serial photography sites. One at Carysfort
reef and one at Grecian rocks reef. The series is now 52 years in
length. You can view the first 50 years of this series at the USGS
website.
What does the series show? The advent of coral diseases in the late
1970s and the demise of Acropora cervicornis that culminated in 1983
throughout the Caribbean. Decline due to bleaching and disease has
continued to the present. At both study sites which were once lush
there is no longer any A. cervicornis. I found one small sickly
colony about the size of a grapefruit at Grecian Rocks. I have to ask
the question. Had Acropora been listed back in 1984 when it was
apparent to all that the species was in a spiraling decline would it
be flourishing today? The answer of course is clearly no! Staghorn
(A. cervicornis) does grow exceptionally well suspended on lines in
the water column. The question remains, will it grow on the bottom
where corals normally grow. It would be interesting to see if these
corals would grow if transplanted to Carysfort and Grecian which
were once the premier sites for these species. Any volunteers?
Possibly the Center for Biodiversity should fund such a study. Gene
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