[Coral-List] Fwd: Coral mortality in a warmer and acidified ocean

Bill Raymond billraymond10 at yahoo.com
Sat Jan 28 06:37:01 EST 2017


THAT'S VERY GOOD NEWS. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. 

    On Friday, January 27, 2017 3:48 PM, Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:
 

 One other small point might be that the fact that a species survives
doesn't mean that it was unaffected.  If there are, say, 100 million
colonies in the world, you could kill all but 0.000001% of the colonies,
and the species might still be able to survive.  Might.  Meantime, what
would be left of the ecosystem if almost all the colonies died?  For the
100 million or so people whose food supply depends on reef fish catch, we
could just say "let them eat algae!"
    Cheers,  Doug

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 11:28 AM, Sean Beckwith <stbeckwith at mail.usf.edu>
wrote:

> I meant to reply to all and include the Coral List, so I'm sending this
> again.  Sorry, Michael, for the duplicate emails.
>
> Sean
>
> (Please see the following message below)
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> Thank you Gene for posting and Michael for commenting.
>
> The crux of this discussion is the rate at which the oceans are
> acidifying.  Is everyone taking this point into consideration in this
> discussion?  The geological record shows that CO2 levels have been much,
> much higher in the past and, on a broad scale, of course corals have
> survived because they are still here.  Isn't the rate of global pH change
> the only point worth talking about?  Or is there another facet of the trend
> in pCO2 increase that is equally as important?  The mostly highly resolved
> geological/paleoceanographic studies show that the rapidest acidification
> events in the past happened on scales of thousands to tens of thousands of
> years.
>
> In terms of local versus global, it certainly depends on the remoteness of
> a habitat.  In the Florida Keys and parts of the Caribbean, corals have
> been decimated by the synergistic effects of a host of stressors -
> certainly not just ocean acidification.  However, OA is not done yet, and
> every indication is that it is just getting started.  And at a rate higher
> than every recorded in the geological record. To me, this remains the
> clearest threat to the existence of calcifying species on this planet.
>
> Sean
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Risk, Michael <riskmj at mcmaster.ca>
> wrote:
>
> > Fascinating, Gene.
> >
> > I await feedback from the rest of the 8,000-odd on the -list, those who
> > are still able to respond after the recent political changes in your
> county.
> >
> > The implication, or the inevitable conclusion, is that the recent decline
> > in Acropora has been caused by local stresses, not global change. This is
> > something many in the reef community find hard to accept.
> >
> > Mike
> > ________________________________________
> > From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > [coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml..noaa.gov] on behalf of Eugene Shinn [
> > eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu]
> > Sent: January 25, 2017 12:43 PM
> > To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > Subject: [Coral-List] Coral mortality in a warmer and acidified ocean
> >
> > *In addition to the paper reviewed in the previous Coral-list here is A
> > review published in the blog Co2 Science  Gene
> > *
> >
> > *Paper Reviewed*
> > Stolarski, J., Bosellini, F.R., Wallace, C.C., Gothmann, A.M., Mazur,
> > M., Domart-Coulon, I., Gutner-Hoch, E., Neuser, R.D., Levy, O., Shemesh,
> > A. and Meibom, A. 2016. A unique coral biomineralization pattern has
> > resisted 40 million years of major ocean chemistry change. /Scientific
> > Reports/ *6*: 27579, DOI: 10.1038/srep27579.
> >
> > Publishing their work in the journal /Scientific Reports/, the team of
> > eleven international researchers compared the skeletal structures of
> > living /Acropora/ corals with those of well-preserved fossil /Acropora/
> > skeletons from the Eocene, Oligocene, and Miocene, noting that these
> > latter organisms "have experienced major fluctuations in atmospheric CO2
> > levels (from greenhouse conditions of high pCO2 in the Eocene to low
> > pCO2 ice-house conditions in the Oligocene-Miocene) and a dramatically
> > changing ocean Mg/Ca ratio." By doing so, it could therefore be
> > empirically determined whether or not higher levels of CO2 (i.e., ocean
> > acidification) truly are a detriment to corals, interfering with the
> > process of calcification and disrupting or weakening skeletal structure..
> >
> > So is that what they found? Were these major reef building corals harmed
> > by ocean acidification and temperature changes of conditions past?
> >
> > In a word, /no/. In stark contrast, in fact, Stolarski /et al/. report
> > that "the most diverse, widespread, and abundant reef-building coral
> > genus /Acropora/ (20 morphological groups and 150 living species) has
> > not only survived these environmental changes, but has maintained its
> > distinct skeletal biomineralization pattern for at least 40 My." Such
> > "remarkable evolutionary stability," they continue, "exists despite
> > major global geochemical fluctuations, from greenhouse (high pCO2)
> > conditions and low seawater Mg/Ca (calcitic seas) in the Eocene to
> > icehouse (low pCO2) conditions and rapidly increasing Mg/Ca (aragonite
> > seas) during the Oligocene-Miocene."
> >
> > The take home message of the Stolarski /et al/. paper is that the
> > skeletal formation process of /Acropora/ is, as they state, "strongly
> > biologically controlled," uninhibited by changes in temperature or
> > seawater chemistry, including seawater pH/ocean acidification conditions
> > that are predicted to occur over the course of the next century and
> beyond.
> >
> > --
> >
> >
> > 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>
> > Tel 727 553-1158
> > ---------------------------------- -----------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
>
>
>
> --
> *Sean Beckwith*
> Geological Oceanography
> University of South Florida - College of Marine Science
> 727-744-2176 <(727)%20744-2176>
> stbeckwith at mail.usf.edu
>
>
> --
> *Sean Beckwith*
> Geological Oceanography
> University of South Florida - College of Marine Science
> 727-744-2176
> stbeckwith at mail.usf.edu
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>



-- 
Douglas Fenner
Contractor for NOAA NMFS, and consultant
"have regulator, will travel"
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

phone 1 684 622-7084

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"Belief in climate change is optional, participation is not."- Jim Beever.
  "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts."-
Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Last year was- again- the hottest year on record.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/sifter/last-year-was-again-hottest-record

99 Reasons 2016 was a good year.
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 Check items 42-59.

43. Global carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels did not grow
at all in 2016, for the third year in a row.  Scientific American
<http://futurecrunch.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6321feeb3ffd42b0e44a01616&id=18ef49d1e6&e=20926c12c5>

44. renewables now account for more newly installed capacity than any other
form of electricity in the world, including coal.. Gizmodo
<http://gizmodo.com/renewables-now-exceed-all-other-forms-of-new-power-gene-1788195297>
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