[Coral-List] diver distance

Sat Aug 17 10:29:37 EDT 2013

Steve,

The short answer to your question: "Is your committee considering the promotion of educational outreach 
related to the impending effects of climate change to be among its 
priorities?", is Yes. But of course, it's complicated. There are many environmental problems impacting the future of the Florida Keys, in my view the two overriding, critical concerns are the results of impending climate change and the probable current and increasing presence of endocrine disrupting chemicals in the near shore and offshore waters of the Keys (actually the waters of all our coastlines are probably effected to various degrees). We have discussed these problems, among many others, in our meetings.

One of our SAC members, Chris Bergh of the Nature Conservancy has been very much involved with the issue of potential changes in the Florida Keys due to climate change. In a recent publication "Climate Change Action Plan for the Florida Reef System 2010-2015" Chris has effectively described what and to what degree the Florida Keys might expect sea level rise and environmental changes in the coming years of this century. This publication is
 available online.

http://frrp.org/Presentations/2ndRRC/Tues%20Intro/Tuesday%20am-Alex%20Score.pdf

In this publication Chris outlines the actions that we can take to prepare for these changes.

Goal 1: Increase coral reef resilience to climate change and 
ocean acidification through effective management strategies 
and actions.

Goal 2. Identify, understand, and communicate risks and 
vulnerability of Florida’s coral reef ecosystems, ecosystem 
services, and dependent human communities to climate 
change and ocean acidification.

Goal 3. Enhance strategic management of Florida’s coral 
reef ecosystems through improved and applied 
understanding, forecasts, and projections of climate change 
and ocean acidification impacts

I have also been active in bringing to the attention of the public and the SAC to the potential problem of endocrine disruptors in our near shore and offshore waters. The problem of endocrine disrupting chemicals, active in affecting hormone activity in vertebrates and invertebrates alike at extremely low concentrations is a relatively recently recognized problems in our fresh and marine waters. There are now over 800 chemicals that have been or are suspected to have endocrine disrupting activity and that find their way into our waters. Since the Florida Bay and the Keys receives waters from the agricultural and urban areas of South Florida, the 17 major rivers of the east coast of the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi to the Everglades Shark River, and from Caribbean waters, as well as storm water runoff and our now being phased out septic systems; I strongly suspect that we have problems with endocrine disruptors in Keys waters. And the effects of
 endocrine disruptors on the larvae of marine invertebrates, including corals and sea urchins are largely  unknown. We just don't know what is in the waters, where and when it is present, and what the effects might be. And that we have to know before corrective action can be taken.

In our discussions, however, we elected not to include these problems directly in our current efforts to restore our ecosystem. This decision was not because we felt that these problems are unimportant, far from it, it was because these problems were not directly within our current abilities to work with corrective environmental efforts. That said, we are working to complete the installation of sewer systems, storm water control, and on canal water quality, to clean up and repair canal water flows. The residents of the Florida Keys are accepting the largest share of these efforts that will improve these unique and valuable  ecosystems, not only for Florida but for the nation as well. The Sanctuary also has a very active and effective Education and Outreach program and the Sanctuary and the Sanctuary Friends Foundation of the Florida Keys makes every effort to inform and educate the public on the environmental status of our environment and our efforts to
 preserve, conserve, and restore our ecosystems,

I think you are correct in that "the future of Florida’s reefs will likely depend on efforts that 
extend even beyond a vision that accounts for extended MPA's and the 
beneficial merger of coral and Diadema restoration technologies". It will take a concerted effort on not only the part of the citizens of the Keys and the State of Florida, but also on the recognition and control of the pollutants that are released into the atmosphere and that are flushed away in all the waterways of North America, and the repair of the industrial and agricultural practices of the entire United States, and the world as well. This is a very big problem of course, but we can solve big problems if we have the will, and the fate of the only coral reef, the third largest in the world, here in the Florida Key may be a catalyst that will stimulate action.

Martin

________________________________
 From: Steve Mussman <sealab at earthlink.net>
To: Martin Moe <martin_moe at yahoo.com>; "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov" <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> 
Cc: Eugene Shinn <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu> 
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2013 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] diver distance

Martin,

It sounds like the SAC and the Sanctuary are developing an ambitious plan to restore and conserve coral reefs in the Florida Keys. Its comforting to know that comprehensive efforts like these are being formulated. I don't want to appear to be a detracting critic as is often the case with email messages that can easily be misinterpreted, but I have to ask about my "personal favorite".  Not that it is the only issue deserving attention, but because science dictates. I noticed in your post that the second methodology focuses on the importance of economic factors. The well-founded goal would be to maintain the best natural ecology possible while still allowing for responsible economic use of natural resources. Is your committee considering the promotion of educational outreach related to the impending effects of climate change to be among its priorities?  I'm asking because I sincerely believe that we can work on efforts to address this
 threat without sacrificing essential economic opportunities (although admittedly it is proving difficult to convince entrenched business interests that these goals are not mutually exclusive). I continue to probe this topic with the conviction that the future of Florida’s reefs will likely depend on efforts that extend even beyond a vision that accounts for extended MPA's and the beneficial merger of coral and Diadema restoration technologies.   

Regards,
 Steve     

-----Original Message----- 
From: Martin Moe 
Sent: Aug 15, 2013 2:59 PM 
To: Steve Mussman , Eugene Shinn , "coral-list at coral..aoml.noaa.gov" 
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] diver distance 

I
 would like to add something to this thread. The discussions
have morphed from the potential of damage from unknowing divers into lamentations
on the declining condition of our coral reefs from natural as well as
anthropomorphic causation. Maybe in some places we can repair some of the
damage. I’m a member of the Sanctuary Advisory Council for the Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary and the SAC and the Sanctuary are working on how we
can protect, maintain and actually restore the coral reefs of the Florida Keys.
The focus of the current rezoning work of the FKNMS and the SAC is on how we
can preserve and restore our marine ecosystems. We are in the early stages
developing a plan for the aggressive protection and active restoration of our ecosystems.
We don’t have all the answers yet, but things are falling into place. We are carefully
examining what we can do and where we can do it.

We are working to
 achieve marine ecosystem restoration
through three basic methodologies.
1/ Review of our already established marine protected zones
and establishment of additional marine protected, no-take zones that contain
all the elements of a healthy tropical environment; reef, rubble, sand, and
seagrass, at various depths as marked and enforced marine protected, no-take
areas where all species of marine life can attain a natural balance and natural
productivity. Human activity, in ways known and unknown, can disrupt and effect
behavior and survival of many species that are not the target of the activity.
Zones where the touch of the human hand is light and infrequent allows these
areas to maintain a natural ecology and to serve as seed banks for the broader
region. A case in point is the remarkable recovery and expansion of fish
populations in the marine protected area of the Dry Tortugas in the span of
just 5 years.
 (Implementing the Dry Tortugas National Park Research Natural
Area Science Plan, The 5-Year Report; 2012). 

 2/ However, our
economy is also important and some of these marine protected areas will use
regulation, enforcement, education, and outreach to restore, protect, and
maintain as best a natural ecology as possible while still allowing for
responsible economic use of these natural resources. This includes active
management of fishery resources in open zones to protect as best as possible
the natural ecology of exploited species, such as game fish, food fish and
invertebrates, and the structure and health of coral reefs.

 3/ Create the
management and economic structure that will stimulate active restoration of
coral reef structure, sea grass, and keystone species that are essential to the
restoration of the ecology and ecosystems of the Florida Keys. Much of current
ecosystem
 restoration is a new science that is currently being developed and
shows great promise for restoring environmentally resilient strains of keystone
species of coral reef organisms. It is an emerging technology that requires
scientific development and flexibility of regulation to allow timely and
effective experimentation and application of restoration science.

On this last point, great progress has been made by Ken
Nedimyer, (Coral Restoration Foundation), The Nature Conservancy, Mote Marine
Laboratory Center for Coral Reef Research, and other organizations over the
last 10 years in the propagation of resilient strains of Acropora and other
coral species; and in the outplanting of these strains on our reefs. These efforts have been successful to the point that spawning of the corals that have grown into thickets of reestablished
coral colonies has actually occurred.

However, with the realization that
 reestablishment of coral
colonies without efforts to control pollution from human waste and without
efforts to restore the ecological environment that allows Atlantic coral reefs to
maintain a functional coral reef ecosystem, we are doing the following. Ever
since the establishment of human populations on the Florida Keys, the methodology
for disposing of human waste and household liquid waste has been first cesspits
and secondly septic systems. Due to the very porous nature of the limestone
rock base of the Keys, the nutrients, bacteria, viruses, and chemical contaminants
quickly find their way in to the canals, near shore waters, and even to some
degree to the offshore coral reefs. We have made great and expensive progress
in construction of sewer systems in the Keys over the last few years, and this process will be
completed throughout the Keys within two or three years.

Another critical effort to restore
 the coral reef ecosystems
of the Florida coral reefs involves reestablishment of the critical function of
herbivory to our reefs. As everyone involved in the study of western Atlantic
coral reefs is well aware, the advent of a decimating disease in 1983 destroyed
the billions of long-spined sea urchin, Diadema
antillarum, that populated the hard bottoms of this vast region and effectively
eliminated the function of herbivory on the coral reefs. Not only did Diadema control macro algal growth to
the extent that corals can effectively compete with macro algae for space and
light, the feeding activity of Diadema also cleans substrates down to a hard surface, which stimulates the growth of
crustose coralline algae.This hard
surface allows settlement and survival of coral larvae, Diadema larvae and many other invertebrates as well. Ecological
restoration of Florida’s coral reefs will not be possible without the return of
 Diadema to these reefs.

It was thought that Diadema should return to the reefs within a short time, despite the 94 to 98 percent mortality,
because they are extremely fecund. An adult female can produce between 10 to 20
million eggs per spawn and can spawn many times each year. But thirty years
later the return of Diadema to Caribbean
reefs is small and patchy and their return to the Florida reefs is represented by
scattered individuals and very occasional small groups. Reasons for the lack of re-population includes low numbers of larvae in the waters of the region and
rapid overgrowth of macro algae on reefs and hard bottoms. Numbers of Diadema larvae in the plankton pre 1983
must have been immense before the pandemic and their loss may have actually
changed plankton ecology in this region. The rapid shift on the reefs from
coral domination to macro algae domination changed the benthic ecology as well.
Macro
 algae all but eliminated exposed hard surfaces, collected a depth of
sediment on these bottoms, and harbored an increased number of micro predators
that further reduced the numbers of newly settled Diadema juveniles. Thus although Diadema are present on Florida reefs, their numbers are so low that
they are ecologically extinct.

With large scale culture of Diadema through the larval stage into juveniles, it may well be
possible to restore them to the reefs. If ecologically effective populations of Diadema can be established on selected
coral reefs along the Florida reef track, and if these populations are maintained at ecologically
functional numbers through artificial recruitment in place of ineffective
natural recruitment; then there will be coral reef areas where corals can grow
and reproduce under the conditions of natural herbivory and Diadema can also grow and condition the
hard substrates for settlement and
 survival of corals, Diadema and other invertebrates. Also under these conditions, Diadema can spawn in the close proximity
to each other that allows for fertilization of the immense number of eggs
produced by adult females. Settlement and survival of corals and Diadema will increase, and over time,
the ecologically restored coral reef areas will grow in size, and with the
increase in larval numbers, new areas of coral and Diadema establishment will
occur.

This depends, of course, on the development and
establishment of the technology and facilities for large scale culture of Diadema, and I don’t think that the possibility
of this is very far off. The Mote Center for Coral Reef Research under Dr.
David Vaughan, in addition to a number of coral restoration projects, and
myself in a small home based lab, have been working on developing the technology
for Diadema culture for several
years. It is a very
 difficult task but we have both been able to rear hundreds
of Diadema into the stable juvenile
stage. I have reared them to adults, spawned the hatchery bred adults, and
reared the F2 generation to stable juveniles. (A “stable” juvenile is feeding
and growing to 1 to 2 cm in test diameter.) For coral reef restoration work,
however, we have to be able to consistently rear thousands of juveniles that
are behaviorally capable of survival on coral reefs at least as well as
naturally settled juveniles. We still have a way to go on very limited funding
before we will have accomplished this goal. 

It is a difficult task but the future of Florida’s reefs
depends on the merger of the coral and Diadema restoration technology. This is not an impossible dream. David Cohen, director
of the Sea Urchin Hatchery in Honolulu, has been working with a different sea
urchin. Tripneustes gratilla, to control macro algae
 in
Kaneohe Bay and just recently announced that over 100,000 urchins have been
released since January of 2011. Hopefully in the not too distant future Florida’s
reefs will benefit from a similar program. We will never know if ecological
restoration of Florida’s coral reefs is possible if we don’t make a serious
effort to restore Diadema.

Martin Moe

________________________________
From: Steve Mussman 
To: Eugene Shinn ; "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov" 
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 9:15 AM
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] diver distance

Dear Gene,

Yes, in the long term (over geological time) nature has likely been more harmful to coral reefs and other ecosystems than humans. But then consider the fact that we humans haven't been here but for a small fraction of earth's existence and the proposition turns.

We really haven't had much time to over-fish, litter, chemically
 pollute, cut down mangroves and dump unhealthy levels of nutrients and sedimentation into our coastal waters. And don't forget we haven't been exposing those scores of happy snorkelers and divers to the wonders of what used to be thriving reefs but for a few fleeting seconds of earth's time.

So while oodles of money are flowing and the Keys economy is the best you have ever seen, have you ever stopped to consider the picture that is emerging for future generations to behold?  What will that ever popular Molasses Reef look like three decades from now? 

Maybe I'm just not finding enough comfort in the fact that nature can be harmful too. 

  Regards,
  Steve

-----Original Message-----
>From: Eugene Shinn 
>Sent: Aug 14, 2013 4:51 PM
>To: "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov" 
>Subject: [Coral-List] diver distance
>
>Dear Listers, I just spent more than a month diving in the Keys
 and 
>photographing the corals I have photographed yearly since 1960. Un 
>fortunately there has been no noticeable improvement at those sites 
>(Grecian Rocks and Carysfort Reef). Have spent last few days catching up 
>on e-mail and scanning the various coral list threads. As a geologist it 
>was easy to identify with the comments by Dennis Hubbard. His Caribbean 
>work indicates a coral growth hiatus at 3,000 and 6,000 years bp (before 
>present). In the Keys we have documented a hiatus in /Acropora 
>cervicornis/ growth centered around 3000 years bp as well as one 
>centered at 4,500 ka. The 6 ka hiatus found by Hubbard is not present in 
>Florida Keys reefs because the shelf was being flooded and corals were 
>just beginning to grow at that time. This knowledge is based on Carbon 
>14 dating of corals at the base of coral reef cores. Although dating 
>verifies two major
 breaks in coral growth there were likely many more 
>during the past 6 ka (thousand years) when the so-called Florida reef 
>tract was being flooded during the world-wide Holocene rise. Frequent 
>waxing and waning occurred during that time because approximately 98 
>percent of that 150+ mile long reef tract has built up no more than 2 m 
>of coral accumulation. That knowledge is based on more than 20 years of 
>high resolution seismic profiling and ground truth coring 
>. In fact, a core adjacent to the 
>Aquarius habitat revealed only 15 cm of accumulation during the past 6 
>ka. In other words biologists studying that area have in fact have been 
>studying a hardground community that looks like a coral reef. That's ok 
>because they would get the same biological results studying corals etc. 
>on a true coral reef accumulation.
>
>True reef accumulations do occur in
 the keys but they are mainly in the 
>form of coral spurs and occur mainly on preexisting Pleistocene bedrock 
>highs. These are the named reefs that have kept pace with sea level rise 
>(about 2 percent of the reef tract). It is the cores of these 
>accumulations upon which our knowledge of Keys coral reef history is 
>based. Clearly there were climate related events (increased hurricanes? 
>fluxes of cold water? warming seas? diseases?) that kept the other 98 
>percent of the reef tract from developing along with those on the 
>bedrock highs.
>
>Yes, People have likely affected growth in the past 50-years but that 
>does not prove natural events were not equally harmful. In the long 
>term, as Hubbard says, nature has likely been more harmful than people.
>
>During this latest expedition I observed formidable examples of shifting 
>baselines or should we now call
 it the "new normal"? During our short 
>visit to Grecian Rocks we observed the arrival and departure of at least 
>5 large catamarans each of which disgorged 20 to 30 snorkelers, not 
>including the numerous private boatloads of snorkelers. I estimate that 
>around 200 swimmers snorkeled the leeward side of Grecian Rocks during 
>that day, and this was not even a weekend! I can only surmise that the 
>snorkelers were happy with what used to be a thriving reef and clearly 
>oodles of money was flowing into the Keys economy. After observing all 
>this activity the question of how close a diver should approach corals 
>seems moot. If the water is clear the divers appear to be happy and the 
>keys economy is flourishing like I have never seen during my 60 some odd 
>years of diving there. I wonder what it was like at the really popular 
>reefs such as Molasses
 reef?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
>
>Tel 727 553-1158
>---------------------------------- -----------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Coral-List mailing list
>Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list

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