[Coral-List] pumice raft will not save the Great Barrier Reef

[Douglas Fenner]

No, this island of pumice will not help save the Great Barrier Reef

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/great-barrier-reef-pumice-raft-1.5261123

(Among other things, the raft would have to be near a coral reef just at
the right time for spawning to occur for it to get many coral larvae to
attach to the pumice.  Which is very unlikely.  There is documentation that
corals can attach to the larger pieces of pumice and be carried over long
distances.  If you look along the stranding line on beaches in Australia
you can find such pumice even when we don't know of any such rafts.  When I
did it, all I could find were small pieces of pumice a few cm diameter or
less, and I never found a single one with a coral attached.  Granted I
didn't spend a lot of time looking, and I searched maybe 100 m at most, of
beaches which stretch for perhaps 3500 km.  Plus, in order to seed any
larvae on the reef, a piece of pumice would have to be large enough and
have floated long enough for the coral to have grown to reproductive size
without having sunk the pumice from its weight, and would have to be close
enough to a reef during spawning season to have larvae from the colony on
the pumice settle on the reef.  (or to happen to reach the exact size
needed to sink the pumice right when it was over the reef, instead of
somewhere else in the vast ocean).  Far more likely to be floating way out
at sea or hard up on the stranding line on the beach dead from
desiccation.  It was a nice idea, but the number of new corals brought to
the reef by pumice is likely to be infinitesimal compared to the size of
the reef.  Enough, however, to at some point in a long period of time,
possibly carry a coral to a new location outside its former range.  But
that's very different from reseeding a huge population on a vast reef
system.)

Jokiel, P.L.  1989.  Rafting of reef organisms and other organisms at
Kwajelein Atoll.  Marine Biology 101: 483-493.

Jokiel PL  (1990)  Long-distance dispersal by rafting: re-emergence of an
old hypothesis.  Endeavour 14: 66-73.

Jokiel, P.L. and Martinelli, F.J.  1992.  The vortex model of coral reef
biogeography.  Journal of Biogeography 449-458.

Cheers, Doug
-- 
Douglas Fenner
Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

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