[Coral-List] NOAA plan to save coral reefs

Sun Dec 22 15:27:46 UTC 2019

With regards to LBSP (local based sources of pollution), the Florida Keys
deserves some credit for getting its residents off of aging, leaky septic
systems and onto a municipal wastewater treatment system to the benefit of
surrounding reefs.
https://www.wlrn.org/post/flush-away-florida-keys-celebrate-sewers#stream/0

Higher nutrient (frequently reversed-thermoclined from hyper-saline
conditions during summer drought) water from Florida Bay remains a problem
that only large-scale Everglades restoration will alleviate. The infilling
of islands during the construction of Henry Flagler's Overseas railroad
over a century ago choked the natural water flow leading to nearshore reef
decline (long before anyone was paying much attention). The Florida Keys
are a case study for multiple local stressors causing reef decline, but are
also now a case-study for subsequent human-lead coral restoration efforts
and research. Kudos to everyone involved in these efforts, particularly
CRF, FWC, NOAA, Mote, and the Florida Aquarium. As scientists, let's keep
an open mind to the real world experiment underway that is increasing the
coral density and diversity on a handful of carefully selected reefs to
determine if it will result in the eventual production of more resilient
gametes capable of seeding larger areas of the Florida Reef Tract.

We have to confront global and local stressors with equal vigor; they are
interconnected. Constantly griping about the small-scale of current
restoration efforts does nothing but sap the energy of those dedicated to
the efforts. After Hurricane Irma, one of the biggest problems that Florida
reefs face is from the hundreds of thousands of nylon lobster trap ropes
that are now tangled up and abrading anything within its radius (not to
mention the initial damage of the concrete-laden traps themselves smashing
about the reef in the storm). Damaged coral tissue likely results in a
greater likelihood of disease transmission. Just the physical removal of
all this storm debris will result in significant improvement in long-term
Keys reef health. The point being that increased hurricane strength as a
result of global warming will only magnify their destructive local
impacts.

Someone recently described coral restoration efforts as futile, like
'rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic', but if forced to use a
Titanic metaphor, I'd rather describe coral restoration efforts as 'making
a few more life boats with the wood of the deck chairs'. It is truly all
hands on deck; the boat has not entirely sunk yet.

With regards to the SCTLD outbreak, and whether it is even worth the effort
to transplant vulnerable species back to these reefs, I believe it is.
Reporting from where the disease first appeared up here in Miami in 2014,
there is a minority of colonies that have survived, and survival appears
even higher amongst younger colonies settled on seawalls and artificial
substrates. I am happy to report recruitment in urban habitats of species
like Meandrina meandrites that were all but wiped out offshore by SCTLD.
Hopefully this suggests there is some resiliency and disease resistance
amongst the younger coral holobionts. Plus there has been a lot of great
research on the coral hologenome and probiotics in the past 5 years that is
just starting to bear fruit. Let's not throw in the towel on stony corals
just yet. Let's give them a (clean) hand and build them a few more life
boats while we still can. May every scuba diver plant or adopt a coral in
2020 and beyond!

Colin Foord
Coral Morphologic

On Sat, Dec 21, 2019 at 12:20 PM <coral-list-request at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Re: Seasoned perspectives (Dennis Hubbard)
>    2. Re: NOAA plan to save coral reefs (Risk, Michael)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2019 11:23:51 -0500
> From: Dennis Hubbard <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu>
> To: Steve Mussman <sealab at earthlink.net>
> Cc: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Seasoned perspectives
> Message-ID:
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> hLUkDy1kPeAfGQg at mail.gmail.com>
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>
> Hi Steve. All good and thoughtful questions. Being a scientist does nothing
> to make me immune to all the emotions of sport divers watching their
> favorite dive sites in "decline". However, as a geologist, I have the
> advantage of seeing this as part of the larger evolutionary process; we are
> just one more natural perturbation that the rest of nature has to deal with
> or disappear.
>
> Reefs of varying types have come and gone over millennia. If we think of
> ourselves as just one more geologic-scale threat, it's hard to imagine our
> impact being anything akin to the asteroid impact at the end of the
> Cretaceous. Our impacts are unique and probably faster than most past
> geological phenomena. And, it is likely that reefs will not return to their
> former glory until we are gone. But - we will be gone and something will
> return to take the place of scleractineans - and us as an ecological
> factor. Early reefs were something akin to pond slime but they put the
> oxygen into the atmosphere that eventually allowed *Homo stupidus* to
> evolve - in the words of Samuel Clemens, "no good deed shall go
> unpunished". Initially we had rugose corals and other smallish morphologies
> that were likewise replaced by forms that were replaced themselves... all
> without our "help". The loss of myriad species due the the K-T impact
> cleared the way for scleractineans - was that "good" or "bad"? In all of
> this, we are a blip that will disappear. If there is any justice, it is
> that our demise will be of our own doing and thinking of ourselves as
> anything other than a species competing with others leads to all the angst
> that is our just price for what we do.
>
> Best for the holidays,
>
> Denny
>
> On Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 1:18 PM Steve Mussman <sealab at earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Dennis,
> >
> > Do you suppose science allows for some level of emotional involvement?
> > The term ?ecogrief? comes to mind.  I?m suffering from it and I imagine
> so
> > are multitudes of others. Scientists can try to shield themselves against
> > any intrusion on their objectivity, but they can?t be totally immune. I
> > would think those with more well-developed baselines would have greater
> > susceptibility.  I know that witnessing changes firsthand over many
> decades
> > now has had a profound impact on my perspective. That and the time
> > restraints that come with aging leads me to believe that seasoned
> > researchers might be inclined to harbor somewhat of a greater sense of
> > urgency.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Sent from EarthLink Mobile mail
> >
> >
> > On 12/18/19, 6:30 PM, Dennis Hubbard <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi Steve:
> >
> >
> > I'm sure you are familiar with this but, just in case, papers by Jackson,
> > Paulay and others have eloquently addressed the facts that a) reef
> decline
> > has taken different pathways since before Columbus and b) different
> > generations have different perspectives of decline (both magnitude and
> > causes) because they  have different baselines than those on either side
> of
> > them chronologically (the often discussed "shifting baseline syndrome").
> > More recently, this has been complicated by advocacy groups arguing for
> the
> > primacy of their "fix" - no tourism, vegetarianism, exclusion zones vs
> > better advertising that stepping on corals is bad for them; we've had
> > plenty of examples on the listserve. In the "old days", we had the luxury
> > of a slowly advancing problem (in fact, most of us probably thought reefs
> > were "fine" when we started out careers decades ago. I can't prove it,
> but
> > I strongly suspect that the "pristene" reefs I worked on in the 70s were
> a
> > lot more negatively impacted than I or my colleagues knew. Just go back
> and
> > look at the proceedings from Bob Ginsburg's volume based on "reef status"
> > studies by the major reef workers at that time. I have vivid memories of
> > everyone bemoaning the declining numbers in their long-term surveys. I
> > asked the simple question, "How many people in this room, when choosing
> the
> > place they would study for the rest of their career, say "I'm going to
> look
> > at the crummiest most degraded reef I can find?" The end result then (as
> I
> > suspect is still the case today to some degree) is that those long-term
> > sites may have has no place to go but down.
> >
> >
> > Just think about how our approach to "reef study" has changed over the
> > careers of we "geezer scientists". The first two ISRS meetings were
> > dominated by advancing our scientific understanding of ecological
> processes
> > on modern reefs. Then, as we started to see things changing, we invented
> > monitoring and session after session in meeting after meeting were
> > dedicated to advocating the best way to create data on quantify  the
> > changing state of reefs (most of these focused on counting corals) -
> point
> > counts versus quadrats versus chain transects... and on.... and on).
> > Increasingly, we have shifted from broadly describing reefs to measuring
> > specific communities, to monitoring how they have changed and now
> > "management". We argued over "no take" zones versus "management schemes"
> > and have now broadened the discussiion to argue for specific management
> > scenarios as we realize that by the time we figure out how to quantify
> how
> > bad things really are, there will be no reefs left to manage.
> >
> >
> > So, to answer your question ("do you suppose that there is some
> measurable
> > difference in attitude and approach between the more ?seasoned? veterans
> of
> > coral reef wars and those just entering the fray?"), "just look at the
> > liastserve over the past 3-4 years". To fittingly quote "Firesign
> Theater"
> > (for the younger crowd, that's the early Holocene version of Saturday
> Night
> > Live", "we're all bozos on this bus.
> >
> >
> > Denny
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > Coral-List mailing list
> >
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >
> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Dennis Hubbard
> >
> > Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
> >
> > (440) 775-8346
> >
> >
> >  "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"
> >
> >  Benjamin Stein: "Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream"
> >
>
>
> --
> Dennis Hubbard
> Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
> (440) 775-8346
>
> * "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
>  Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2019 15:41:39 +0000
> From: "Risk, Michael" <riskmj at mcmaster.ca>
> To: Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>, coral list
>         <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] NOAA plan to save coral reefs
> Message-ID:
>         <
> 48294C666BE4B64EB047716BD1E248DA34CA0AA6 at FHSDB4H16-1.csu.mcmaster.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> The entire article doesn't even mention LBSP. It's as though Brian
> Lapointe's work had been airbrushed away...we never learn, do we?
> ________________________________________
> From: Coral-List [coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] on behalf of
> Douglas Fenner via Coral-List [coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov]
> Sent: December 19, 2019 3:57 AM
> To: coral list
> Subject: [Coral-List] NOAA plan to save coral reefs
>
> NOAA unveils plan to save coral reefs
>
>
> https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20191209/noaa-unveils-plan-to-save-coral-reefs?fbclid=IwAR1L8fgev0_h_VnP_Morw3UiuHXnwn_G9DdXBHoW8yxai5weRTxKyHliW6c
>
>
> The title makes it sound to me like maybe they are proposing to save all
> coral reefs.  They are proposing to save 7 little reefs in the Florida
> Keys.  Phase 1 will put out Elkhorn, which grows fast and is not subject to
> the stony coral tissue loss disease that is currently ravaging Florida
> reefs.  But Phase 2 plans to put out several other corals, including Pillar
> corals that are subject to that disease, plus "star and brain corals" which
> it doesn't say are subject or not.  Doesn't say they have a plan for how to
> keep them from catching the disease.
>
> Cheers,  Doug
> --
> Douglas Fenner
> Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
> NOAA Fisheries Service
> Pacific Islands Regional Office
> Honolulu
> and:
> Consultant
> PO Box 7390
> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
>
> Even 50-year old climate models correctly predicted global warmng
>
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/even-50-year-old-climate-models-correctly-predicted-global-warming?utm_campaign=news_weekly_2019-12-06&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=3113276
>
> Greenhouse gas emissions to set new record this year, but rate of growth
> shrinks
>
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/greenhouse-gas-emissions-year-set-new-record-rate-growth-shrinks?utm_campaign=news_weekly_2019-12-06&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=3113276
>
> "Global warming is manifestly the foremost current threat to coral reefs,
> and must be addressed by the global community if reefs as we know them will
> have any chance to persist."  Williams et al, 2019, Frontiers in Marine
> Science
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