[Coral-List] Evidence that ocean warming has caused most Caribbean coral loss

[Bruno, John]

>  Stop thinking of pollution as "local," it is not. It gets mixed so anything that does not decompose or permanently leave the ocean WILL end up in every last corder of the world oceans and seas, eventually. If it is toxic enough, it WILL have an impact.
> 

I agree, that’s true for some pollutants for sure - mercury, plastics, etc.  But not for others, e.g. sediments and nutrients, esp. in the tropics where the latter gets taken up and used by primary producers. But still, there is a lot of variability in concentration and our challenge is to get out there and measure where precisely different forms of pollution are a problem and then deal with it. 

> It is all good and well that ecologists are studying the interactions, it is necessary, but the decisions of what actions to take visavi pollution cannot be based on such research alone. There has to be an "umbrella research" that looks at the geography of pollution, stressors and effects, 

That’s exactly what macro-ecologists do. And I agree - it isn’t just about doing small scale experiments on species interactions.  Ecology is about both the biotic and the abiotic world and we need high altitude approaches to sort out impacts like these:)

JB