[Coral-List] Mixed Messages

[tomascik at novuscom.net]

Well said Nicole. One would have thought that more than 30 years after
nutrients were demonstrated to be a serious threat to the health of many
coral reefs around the world, especially the classic blue-water reefs,
folks responsible for coastal development would have done a better job
factoring this into their planning. Sadly the message has not been
received by some as this recent paper demonstrates:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335022567_Effects_of_tourism-derived_sewage_on_coral_reefs_Isotopic_assessments_identify_effective_bioindicators

To those that suggest that 'eutrophication' or 'nutrification' or
'increased nutrient subsidy' were in the past being promoted as the main
causes of coral reef degradation let me state that to my recollection not
one coral reef researcher that has worked on, or is working on, the
effects of nutrients on coral reefs has ever said that nutrient subsidies
alone were responsible to the degradation of coral reefs around the world.
I really hope that we all recognize that to address the synergistic
effects of anthropogenic stressors on coral reefs we need to develop and
apply management policies and practices to manage human activities and
development in a synergistic way.

Tomas

> Why do we all need to remain in our boxes and stick to our one sided
> reasoning line (perhaps due to a paper we might have written)?  Cant we
> all
> agree that multiple stressors are important?  That maybe it really is a
> combination of drivers?  Alina, I am truly mystified that you really
> believe Floridas reef declines don't have a eutrophication factor.
> Really?
>  wow I think I have missed something and would love to see the data behind
> nutrient loading, eutrophication and reef declines.  Isotopes might also
> shine a light (thanks Michael for turning me on to that as we are pursuing
> that more now!).
>
> We work in one of those remote, low human impact, clear water systems (see
> our paper Atoll wide Atoll-scale patterns in coral reef community
> structure: Human signatures on Ulithi Atoll, Micronesia Crane et al
> 2017). There
> are pretty clear patterns associated with nutrients although we didn't
> sample for those specifically.  But the 'worst' reef is in the lowest
> water
> movement, closest to human nutrient loading, lowest oxygen, and highest
> temp.  Which of those is driving it?  there is likely a dominant one, but
> no doubt multiple drivers.
>
> Anyway, denying ANY driver of decline is probably not advancing our
> collective field at all, and surely leaves room for skeptics to jump at
> justifications for poor behavior or lack of action.
>
> Thanks
> Nicole
>
> Nicole L. Crane
> Faculty, Cabrillo College
> Natural and Applied Sciences
> www.cabrillo.edu/~ncrane