[Coral-List] Transformation of Caribbean reefs

[Pawlik, Joseph]

Colleagues,

     Because of the pandemic, many of us are not doing field-work, traveling, or diving. For those of us who work on reefs in the Caribbean, many have missed the accelerating loss of the remaining stony corals, particularly at fore-reef depths >10 m.
This link provides video surveys from January 2021 of reefs on the NW and SW sides of the island of Roatan, Honduras, and a seamount between the island and mainland.
https://youtu.be/507OpUfd3Mc
You can see the final stages of coral loss due to recent bleaching events and disease. Seaweeds, sponges, and octocorals now dominate the benthos. Near-shore and seamount reefs have been similarly affected, suggesting that local run-off and point-sources of pollution are not the primary causes of coral loss.
     A video from a year ago documents the final stages of coral loss on the fore-reefs of the Turks and Caicos. The pace of coral loss appeared more rapid there, but the outcome was the same.
https://youtu.be/11ywGm33wnM
The purpose of these posts is not to depress the heck out of everyone (however likely), but to raise awareness of the reality of Caribbean reefs at the present time. It is one thing to look at a graph of declining percentage cover of stony corals (with the most recent data from several years ago), and another to see the current state of the reefs.

Regards,

Joe



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Joseph R. Pawlik

Frank Hawkins Kenan Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology

Dept. of Biology and Marine Biology

UNCW Center for Marine Science

5600 Marvin K Moss Lane

Wilmington, NC  28409

Office:(910)962-2377; Cell:(910)232-3579

Website: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/index.html

PDFs: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html

Video Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/skndiver011

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