[Coral-List] Subject: Re: Florida now has one spot with the highest
Cummings, Katy
Katherine.Cummings at MyFWC.com
Tue Aug 1 13:59:37 UTC 2023
Hi Doug,
The situation in Florida (and all of our planet's reefs in the long run) is indeed dire, but we are not seeing 100% mortality (yet) on any reef in the Florida Keys. There has been 100% mortality on coral nurseries in the area, but not on the wild reef. I was just at Sombrero yesterday. Besides the acroporids, most other corals are in various stages of bleaching or paling but little to no mortality - many of the large OFAVs look pretty good and are only a little pale. Unfortunately A. palmata has been hit very hard and only a few living colonies remain on Sombrero. As perhaps a tiny beacon of hope, a few of our experimental palmata outplants on Sombrero were doing well and still had good color.
Obviously this won't matter much if we don't start taking meaningful action to reduce/eliminate what's actually killing the coral in the first place, but just wanted to make sure people know the fight isn't over yet. There's still coral out there.
For anyone interested in seeing photos and videos, we are updating this Flickr album as the bleaching event progresses - https://www.flickr.com/photos/myfwc/sets/72177720309991225/
Katy
On 7/28/23, 8:26 PM, Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
The reports say that 100% of the corals at Sombrero Reef in the Florida Keys have died of bleaching from the hot water. In the past, some of the worst mass bleaching events have killed up to 90% of the corals at various locations, but I don't remember any reports of 100% of some reef killed. Have any killed 100% before?
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Today's Topics:
1. Keeping a sense of humor. (John Ware)
2. Re: Florida now has one spot with the highest recorded sea
surface temperature (Steve Mussman)
3. Re: Florida now has one spot with the highest recorded sea
surface temperature (Austin Bowden-Kerby)
4. coral identification training availability (Douglas Fenner)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2023 07:17:05 -0500
From: John Ware <jware at erols.com>
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: [Coral-List] Keeping a sense of humor.
Message-ID: <432cd83b-fd49-0731-0584-696f15374503 at erols.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
To whoever at coral list.
I note that my one and only input to? the coral list, quoted below:
"As I have been saying for many, many years: The problem is that there are too many of us? and each of us (including myself!) consume too many resources."
Was apparently rejected!
Then if look at the latest Coral Reefs and find this huge paper by Lyndon DeVanter which contains the following: "Ultimate causes - human population growth and consumption..."
Looks the same to me.
John
--
John R. Ware PhD
810 Maderia Cir.
Tallahassee, FL 32312
Cell: 928-595-0664
Land: 850-329-6999
jware at erols.com
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2023 12:17:54 -0400
From: Steve Mussman <sealab at earthlink.net>
To: Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Cc: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Florida now has one spot with the highest
recorded sea surface temperature
Message-ID: <8eb63d38-386e-4eeb-a816-736e96a1e4de at Steves-iPad-2>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Hi Doug,
Events unfolding in Florida appear to be a game changer.
The magnitude of the bleaching is going to make it all but impossible for anyone involved in any way with coral reefs to continue to downplay the role of warming oceans. I?m already seeing and hearing long-overdue narratives emerging from sources who have up until now been contorting themselves in every way possible in an effort to avoid taking a firm public stance on climate change. Suddenly, ?#action on climate change? is gaining traction and legitimacy in both the scuba diving and restoration worlds. Perhaps this will be the silver lining in these otherwise disheartening times. While many of us resist Austin?s call for radical action to be taken to control butterflyfish, his overall approach to revising restoration goals should ring true to everyone involved. Desperate times really do call for desperate measures.
Regards,
Steve
Sent from EarthLink Mobile mail
On 7/28/23, 8:26 PM, Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
The reports say that 100% of the corals at Sombrero Reef in the
Florida Keys have died of bleaching from the hot water. In the past, some
of the worst mass bleaching events have killed up to 90% of the corals at
various locations, but I don't remember any reports of 100% of some
reef killed. Have any killed 100% before? Two species of fire coral in
the Eastern Pacific were driven to regional extinction by mass coral
bleaching events in the past (Glynn). One coral at Chagos (*Diploastrea
heliopora*) was driven to local extinction in the Chagos archipelago by
mass coral bleaching and another coral (*Ctenella chagius*) was driven very
near to global extinction (Sheppard et al). Pillar coral in the western
Atlantic is teetering on the brink of global extinction, mostly from
disease, but could bleaching push it over the edge? El Nino is currently
just getting started. By the time it gets going closer to full blast, it
will be the southern hemisphere's turn to have summer, and it could be
worse than what is happening now in Florida, couldn't it???
So, is this the beginning of the end of coral reefs as we know them,
which will be replaced by algae gardens with fewer fish and many other
organisms missing?? Will reefs with 100% coral death from high
temperatures become the rule instead of the exception? How many corals
will go functionally extinct or even globally extinct? How would we
recover from that??
I notice reports that some restoration projects are quickly moving
the corals in their gardens into aquaria that can be kept below bleaching
temperatures. That's smart. That suggests that project people are not
confident that their corals would survive these current conditions. So all
this is going to happen more frequently in the future, and the temperatures
will get even higher, because of global warming, won't it?? I'm reminded
of some institutions in temperate climates that have palm trees in large
pots. They have a device that lets them wheel them inside buildings when
the temperatures get too cold for them. Then move them back out when it
warms up. Are we going to move nursery corals indoors in every heat wave,
then back out after? That's better than letting them cook to death. Maybe
we could move the natural corals on the reefs indoors too. No, there are
too many of them, not possible, plus you'd have to break every one off the
reef, that would take way too long. Not possible.
I think all this means that Austin was exactly right, move as many
resilient corals as you can into water that won't get so hot, that would
greatly increase their survival chances. That is, if you have any such
place.
So if heat waves like this kill near 100% of the natural corals many
places, over and over again, can restoration recover the natural reefs as
fast as global warming can kill them?? Hundreds of thousands of square
miles of coral reef in the world? And those corals that are planted out to
restore reefs, in the next heat wave get killed, then the corals in the
aquaria are put out into nurseries and when large enough are planted on the
reef. And then another heat wave kills them and the whole thing happens
all over again, over and over again. Is all that effort and expense worth
it? Do you see some other future for natural reefs?? I don't, much as I
would love to. Coral restoration may become like the ancient Greek legend
of Sysiphus, who has to push a large rock up a mountain, and then it rolls
down, and he has to do it again for eternity.
And I wonder about those "super corals" that are being selected for
the ability to withstand higher than normal temperatures. Are they able to
survive in the current temperatures that Florida has??? I now envision a
lengthy race between increasing water temperatures on reefs in heat waves,
and efforts to breed ever greater ability to withstand heat, trying to
breed coral tolerance faster than the temperatures of heat waves increase.
Who is going to win that race? Do we want to bet the survival of coral
reefs on the outcome? (do we have any choice???)
One scientist in one of the stories said that we need to prepare
for the future. Yes. And just how are we going to do that?? Take a hand
fan out over a reef and sit in a boat waving the fan over the water to cool
it? Snorkel on the surface over the coral to shade them? There are much
better ways to cool reefs, like piping up cold, deep water. I don't know
anyone who is trying that. Wouldn't be a trivial thing to try to
do, certainly would be impossible for more than just tiny patches of high
value reef. Austin says that shades can be put over coral nurseries to
shade them and he is surely right and it is a good idea. But what about
the natural corals, the hundreds of thousands of square kilometers and
miles of reefs? Can we shade or cool them? No way currently I know of.
Bottom line, I don't see a feasible way of saving corals short of
quickly reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero or very close to it.
And we, as a species, are a LONG way from doing that. We haven't even
BEGUN to slow the rate of increase in CO2 in the atmosphere yet.
And it looks like we don't have any time left, the coral reef
armageddon appears to have begun. Kiss your favorite reef goodbye??
Cheers, Doug
On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 7:17?PM Douglas Fenner
wrote:
> Hottest sea surface temperature recorded anywhere in the world, ever.
> 101.1F
>
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-just-had-the-hottest-recorded-ocean
> -temperature-heres-what-that-means-for-the-environment-215110797.html
>
> 100% coral mortality at Sombrero Reef in the Keys. Also most of the
> corals in the Looe Key nursery have died.
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/hot-tub-water-temperatures-off-183657140.ht
> ml
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/water-tip-florida-hits-hot-000913172.html
>
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-ocean-temperatures-rise-above-21394
> 4171.html
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/extreme-heat-wipes-coral-reef-195403237.htm
> l
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/101-1-degrees-water-temperatures-214600885.
> html
>
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/ocean-temperatures-around-south-florida-223
> 041666.html
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-keys-lab-races-save-203112888.html
>
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-everglades-water-temperatures-reach
> -170400166.html
>
> Mass coral bleaching predicted:
>
>
> https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/hot-florida-sea-surface-tem
> peratures-coral-bleaching-event
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
> --
> Douglas Fenner
> Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
> NOAA Fisheries Service
> Pacific Islands Regional Office
> Honolulu
> and:
> Coral Reef Consulting
> PO Box 997390
> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799-6298 USA
>
> One recent study estimates over 61,000 people died from heat during
> Europe's record-breaking summer last year.
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/record-breaking-heat-bakes-us-014459083.htm
> l
>
> 1 million Florida buildings will be overrun by sea-level rise, new
> study
> shows, at a cost of $261-624 BILLION
>
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/1-million-florida-buildings-overrun-0912033
> 40.html
>
> Scientists size up human predatory footprint
> Humans are the ultimate predators, trapping, hunting, or otherwise
> exploiting 15,000 species of vertebrates?300 times more species than
> jaguars and 113 times more than great white sharks.
>
> https://www.science.org/content/article/news-glance-muscular-dystrophy
> -therapy-lab-grown-chicken-and-humans-toll-wildlife
>
>
_______________________________________________
Coral-List mailing list
Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2023 08:47:58 +1200
From: Austin Bowden-Kerby <abowdenkerby at gmail.com>
To: Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
Cc: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Florida now has one spot with the highest
recorded sea surface temperature
Message-ID:
<CAL0VXCUVjF_0oH6MSJyjGi9F7uwpoGvR+9grEemvUigyDcJ3nQ at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Thanks Doug,
The day of restoration and planting corals randomly on the reef appears to be over. The focus must now turn to keeping each coral species alive and genetically intact, as we approach the dark heart of the climate crisis.
Yes, some coral planting will continue, but with major strategic changes.
As far as shading nurseries, this is to ensure that our collections of genotypes of rare or declining corals do not get wiped out. It does not offer a solution for the wider reef, but it makes the creation of gene bank nurseries all the more important, as they are compact enough to enable us to shade hundreds of genotypes through heat stress events like this one.
And if the local reefs have a strong thermal gradient- a goldilocks situation of hot nearshore reefs, warm water lagoonal reefs, and cooler offshore reefs, then people have the option of creating nurseries composed of heat-adapted corals selected from the hotter reefs and translocated to the cooler nursery sites. But in the present situation, those nurseries might also be shaded as insurance? If there are replicates of the gene bank corals outplanted on the reefs, this time of stress represents a test to see which corals are the most bleaching resistant. If collection of corals is done during this time of stress, those corals must go under heavy shade. And post bleaching, for any resistant corals which do survive, the threat presented by fish and invertebrate predators will be immense, as the predator to prey ratios become skewed.
To add to your list of local extinctions, Christmas Atoll, Kiribati lost most of its coral species in the 2015-16 mass beaching. The entire lagoon in June 2016 was composed of km after km of dead corals with acres of dead and standing staghorn thickets. I found a single colony of foliose Montipora and one lobate Porites colony. That is where I had my 'AH-HA'
moment, and lamented that if I had only gotten their the year before and collected bits of as many species as I could from the lagoon hot-pocket, and then moved them out to the pass area, that they would have very likely survived the mass die-off event. There was no temperature logger in the lagoon, but I feel certain that with such high mortality of a heat-adapted coral population, that the waters of Kiritimati Lagoon approached what Florida Bay is now experiencing.
We have recorded short spikes of 36-37C in our most stressed nearshore sites during low tide, and temperatures of 32-35C are fairly common for the shallows on the nearshore reefs during mid day low tide conditions, and a
surprising diversity of corals lives in these hot areas. We have sampled
these corals and have moved them to a cooler genebank nursery on the middle barrier reef, as a precaution against whatever thermal stress may be coming in the future. We have over the past two years trimmed from these genebank corals, and now have patches of heat adapted corals out on the even cooler outer barrier reef, where we hope they will thrive and spread their resilience over time. So it is not all doom and gloom- but the real test may soon be coming!
While it may be too late for Florida, what might save some Caribbean reefs now will be the formation of hurricanes- hopefully near-miss ones! This is what the 50 Reefs Initiative got wrong, rather than being mostly destructive, cyclones cool off a huge swath of water. We have been saved from bleaching multiple times here in Fiji by cyclones passing as far as 500km from our reefs. Just this year it happened again- four times.
Unfortunately those storms caused destruction in Vanuatu and massive floods in New Zealand. An early hurricane season in the Caribbean could make a big difference to the ultimate outcome of the present crisis.
I operate based on an assumption that humanity will either get our act together, control emissions, and implement everything required for the planet to survive and all species remaining once again to flourish.
Perhaps it is more likely that someone will push the button and kaboom:
humanity will no longer be a major factor? Or perhaps Mother Nature Herself has something up her sleeve, and she will rise up to put us in our place and to save herself? Could the Tonga mega eruption already have done that by causing atmospheric changes which have accelerated the impacts of climate change that will hasten an AMOC collapse?
My earlier post asked everyone to look up from their busy lives and visit the University of Maine Climate Change Institute website, because a fundamental change in the heat budget of the planet has apparently occurred, starting in late March. What is unfolding is so fundamentally off scale that it is shocking, and it can not be attributed to El Nino, which if anything will only make it worse.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ The mean daily ocean
temperature graph, the mean daily atmospheric temperature graph, and the mean daily Antarctic sea ice extent graph are all in new territory. It looks like the impacts of climate change have been fast-forwarded by 20 years. This has me wondering if the AMOC collapse has already begun?
July is the hottest month on record in 120,000 years. This is easier for people to understand than the possibility that something fundamental has changed in the global heat budget.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/27/world/july-hottest-month-record-climate/index.html
So- what about this predicted AMOC collapse? How will it impact coral reefs? Will this be the final nail in the coffin for coral reefs? A lot of internet chatter is happening based on the recent article, which showed an imminent collapse approaching.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w The last time AMOC collapsed was apparently 12,000 years ago, and due to the massive release of meltwater from Greenland. I have done my best to find out what impacts this will have on the planet, and on coral reefs. It looks like the impacts will not be instant, and will take years to decades. The most striking prediction that all models agree on is that the northern hemisphere will cool considerably, while the southern hemisphere will warm. The arctic will re-freeze, while Antarctica will increase its rate of melt. So I am now thinking that just as hurricanes are the planet's way of dissipating an excessive buildup of ocean heat, AMOC shutdown might be the planet's way of preventing massive methane release leading to runaway global warming?
As educators we need to get our facts right, and climate change won't cause a collapse of the Gulf Stream, but it will change its path:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnVWUIhQ8dE
This film highlights several excellent scientific papers on the impact of AMOC collapse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2ETr6X1lOk&t=628s
I got this from Paul Beckwith, a climate change educator at the University of Ottawa, and am still chasing down the sources: "The key chain of events is as follows?. 1) Global warming hole south of Greenland and warming water off East coast of North America, isotopic analyses of sediments, physical monitoring of ocean column, and other proxies all show that the AMOC has slowed significantly, and ocean water currents comprising AMOC are the slowest in the last 1000 years. 2) Nonlinear physics analyses shows that probability of AMOC shutdown between 2025 and 2095 is 95%, with highest likelihood by around 2050. 3) AMOC shutdown would basically cool northern hemisphere and warm southern hemisphere. 4) High Arctic north of Canadian Archipelago, Greenland, and Scandinavian countries would cool as much as 8C, Western Europe would cool 2 to 3 C, and eastern Canada by 1 to 2C.
Southern hemisphere by Latin America and western African coast would warm by 2 to 3 C. 5) With ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone) shifting from just north of equator to just south of equator, precipitation would increase up to 100% around 15 degrees S latitude and decrease this amount at 15 degrees N latitude. 6) Dynamic sea level change would be large.
Between Antarctica and southern tips of South America and Australia, sea level would drop a foot, Gulf of Mexico to Mediterranean would increase a
foot, high Arctic would rise as much as 3 to 9 feet." (Highly
speculative, and of course this would take several generations to unfold, but for sure massive changes are in store.)
My big question now is what will the present thermal spike do to coral reefs here when summer arrives in December? I think that we need to heed this warning and start making preparations now, or we too might miss our chance. Rare and cool-adapted coral collections and gene banking within land-based facilities, hot water adapted coral collections and gene banking within cooler water nurseries (warm to cool water translocations),
preparations for shading existing nurseries. We can not wait any
longer.... We are racing time.
Austin
Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
Corals for Conservation
P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
https://www.corals4conservation.org
Publication on C4C's coral-focused climate change adaptation strategies:
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/4/1/2/pdf
Film on our "Reefs of Hope" coral restoration for climate change adaptation
strategies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG0lqKciXAA
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/
<https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/>
On Sun, Jul 30, 2023 at 4:20?AM Douglas Fenner via Coral-List < coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> The reports say that 100% of the corals at Sombrero Reef in
> the Florida Keys have died of bleaching from the hot water. In the
> past, some of the worst mass bleaching events have killed up to 90% of
> the corals at various locations, but I don't remember any reports of
> 100% of some reef killed. Have any killed 100% before? Two species
> of fire coral in the Eastern Pacific were driven to regional
> extinction by mass coral bleaching events in the past (Glynn). One
> coral at Chagos (*Diploastrea
> heliopora*) was driven to local extinction in the Chagos archipelago
> by mass coral bleaching and another coral (*Ctenella chagius*) was
> driven very near to global extinction (Sheppard et al). Pillar coral
> in the western Atlantic is teetering on the brink of global
> extinction, mostly from disease, but could bleaching push it over the
> edge? El Nino is currently just getting started. By the time it gets
> going closer to full blast, it will be the southern hemisphere's turn
> to have summer, and it could be worse than what is happening now in Florida, couldn't it???
> So, is this the beginning of the end of coral reefs as we know
> them, which will be replaced by algae gardens with fewer fish and many
> other organisms missing?? Will reefs with 100% coral death from high
> temperatures become the rule instead of the exception? How many
> corals will go functionally extinct or even globally extinct? How
> would we recover from that??
> I notice reports that some restoration projects are quickly
> moving the corals in their gardens into aquaria that can be kept below
> bleaching temperatures. That's smart. That suggests that project
> people are not confident that their corals would survive these current
> conditions. So all this is going to happen more frequently in the
> future, and the temperatures will get even higher, because of global
> warming, won't it?? I'm reminded of some institutions in temperate
> climates that have palm trees in large pots. They have a device that
> lets them wheel them inside buildings when the temperatures get too
> cold for them. Then move them back out when it warms up. Are we
> going to move nursery corals indoors in every heat wave, then back out
> after? That's better than letting them cook to death. Maybe we could
> move the natural corals on the reefs indoors too. No, there are too
> many of them, not possible, plus you'd have to break every one off the reef, that would take way too long. Not possible.
> I think all this means that Austin was exactly right, move as
> many resilient corals as you can into water that won't get so hot,
> that would greatly increase their survival chances. That is, if you
> have any such place.
> So if heat waves like this kill near 100% of the natural corals
> many places, over and over again, can restoration recover the natural
> reefs as fast as global warming can kill them?? Hundreds of thousands
> of square miles of coral reef in the world? And those corals that are
> planted out to restore reefs, in the next heat wave get killed, then
> the corals in the aquaria are put out into nurseries and when large
> enough are planted on the reef. And then another heat wave kills them
> and the whole thing happens all over again, over and over again. Is
> all that effort and expense worth it? Do you see some other future
> for natural reefs?? I don't, much as I would love to. Coral
> restoration may become like the ancient Greek legend of Sysiphus, who
> has to push a large rock up a mountain, and then it rolls down, and he has to do it again for eternity.
> And I wonder about those "super corals" that are being selected
> for the ability to withstand higher than normal temperatures. Are
> they able to survive in the current temperatures that Florida has???
> I now envision a lengthy race between increasing water temperatures on
> reefs in heat waves, and efforts to breed ever greater ability to
> withstand heat, trying to breed coral tolerance faster than the temperatures of heat waves increase.
> Who is going to win that race? Do we want to bet the survival of
> coral reefs on the outcome? (do we have any choice???)
> One scientist in one of the stories said that we need to
> prepare for the future. Yes. And just how are we going to do that??
> Take a hand fan out over a reef and sit in a boat waving the fan over
> the water to cool it? Snorkel on the surface over the coral to shade
> them? There are much better ways to cool reefs, like piping up cold,
> deep water. I don't know anyone who is trying that. Wouldn't be a
> trivial thing to try to do, certainly would be impossible for more
> than just tiny patches of high value reef. Austin says that shades
> can be put over coral nurseries to shade them and he is surely right
> and it is a good idea. But what about the natural corals, the
> hundreds of thousands of square kilometers and miles of reefs? Can we shade or cool them? No way currently I know of.
> Bottom line, I don't see a feasible way of saving corals short
> of quickly reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero or very close to it.
> And we, as a species, are a LONG way from doing that. We haven't even
> BEGUN to slow the rate of increase in CO2 in the atmosphere yet.
> And it looks like we don't have any time left, the coral reef
> armageddon appears to have begun. Kiss your favorite reef goodbye??
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
> On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 7:17?PM Douglas Fenner <
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hottest sea surface temperature recorded anywhere in the world, ever.
> > 101.1F
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-just-had-the-hottest-recorded-ocean
> -temperature-heres-what-that-means-for-the-environment-215110797.html
> >
> > 100% coral mortality at Sombrero Reef in the Keys. Also most of the
> > corals in the Looe Key nursery have died.
> >
> > https://www.yahoo.com/news/hot-tub-water-temperatures-off-183657140.
> > html
> >
> > https://www.yahoo.com/news/water-tip-florida-hits-hot-000913172.html
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-ocean-temperatures-rise-above-21394
> 4171.html
> >
> > https://www.yahoo.com/news/extreme-heat-wipes-coral-reef-195403237.h
> > tml
> >
> >
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/101-1-degrees-water-temperatures-214600885.
> html
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/ocean-temperatures-around-south-florida-223
> 041666.html
> >
> > https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-keys-lab-races-save-203112888.htm
> > l
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-everglades-water-temperatures-reach
> -170400166.html
> >
> > Mass coral bleaching predicted:
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/hot-florida-sea-surface-tem
> peratures-coral-bleaching-event
> >
> > Cheers, Doug
> >
> > --
> > Douglas Fenner
> > Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor NOAA Fisheries Service Pacific
> > Islands Regional Office Honolulu
> > and:
> > Coral Reef Consulting
> > PO Box 997390
> > Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799-6298 USA
> >
> > One recent study estimates over 61,000 people died from heat during
> > Europe's record-breaking summer last year.
> >
> > https://www.yahoo.com/news/record-breaking-heat-bakes-us-014459083.h
> > tml
> >
> > 1 million Florida buildings will be overrun by sea-level rise, new
> > study shows, at a cost of $261-624 BILLION
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/1-million-florida-buildings-overrun-0912033
> 40.html
> >
> > Scientists size up human predatory footprint Humans are the ultimate
> > predators, trapping, hunting, or otherwise exploiting 15,000 species
> > of vertebrates?300 times more species than jaguars and 113 times
> > more than great white sharks.
> >
> >
> https://www.science.org/content/article/news-glance-muscular-dystrophy
> -therapy-lab-grown-chicken-and-humans-toll-wildlife
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2023 23:12:58 -1100
From: Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
To: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Subject: [Coral-List] coral identification training availability
Message-ID:
<CAOEmEkFzCfTvnYK7Jdfptk-nburniBsa_zYC6=y4aCLAKYj0-w at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
NOAA has a program for helping people in the Pacific learn to identify some of their corals to species. Species in the Indo-Pacific are generally tough enough to ID that many papers only ID what they collect data on to genus. But the US "Endangered Species Act" is not the "genus act" it is a "species act." Species are an especially important level in the taxonomic hierarchy, and species differ on many things. More information is needed at the species level for evaluating species for the level of danger of extinction, as well as many other things. We commonly record fish at the species level in monitoring, we need to be able to do that for corals as well, but that's not trivially easy, quite the contrary.
There are now two web pages NOAA has put on their website describing this little program.
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pacific-islands/outreach-and-education/coral-species-identification-training-program
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/training-program-teaches-how-identify-indo-pacific-corals
I have now built coral species guides to several places in the Pacific, which are listed in those pages and can be downloaded for free from them.
The guides only include species I have been able to photograph during brief visits to the main island in each archipelago, so they probably include only 1/3 of the species. Plus, this is only at the morphological species level, genetics is likely going to find many more in the coming years and decades. Most of the guides have something on the order of maybe 150 species, the most any may have may be nearly 200 species. So this could be considered an introduction to coral species ID in the Pacific. You can see the list of places that these guides are available for on the web pages.
Note that a far more comprehensive guide which has the species from all over the world is www.coralsoftheworld.org
Part of the program is to go around to places in the Pacific to photograph living corals and build the guides. Another part is to lead workshops in all these locations to teach coral ID to species, for these limited sets of species. All the photos in a guide were taken in the location for the guide, so you don't have to look through huge numbers of species that aren't in that area, plus the photos show what the corals look like there, not somewhere else, and corals can look different in different places. However, many morphospecies of corals have wide ranges and so are present in many other locations than where one of the guides is built based on.
I teach colony shapes first, that is easy and fast, then genera which takes more work and time, and last species which takes the most work and time. Colony shapes take about a half hour, genera a full day, and species
2-3 full days. I teach using Powerpoint presentations, I first show several genera or species and describe what they look like and how they differ from others. Then I have a powerpoint that works like flash cards.
First slide shows the coral but no name. I ask the attendees what it is, and they almost always get it right. Then I go to the next slide which has the exact same picture and the name. I give everyone copies of all the materials and the powerpoint that works as flash cards which is designed for individual practice. No one can remember all the details after 3 days of presentations, to get good at it you have to practice on your own, but it is easy and hopefully some fun. Anyone can do this, if you are interested and persistent and practice.
These workshops are all supported by NOAA, there are no costs for anything. I plan to return to all these locations this year, but also sometimes I do a workshop online, and we could probably put workshops I do in these locations online as well. Workshops are open to anyone who is interested, there are no prerequisites or costs.
I have an online workshop coming up for the Marianas on 6 half-days, which will be on August 9-11 and 14-16 from 8 am to noon their time. If you are interested, note what days that is for you at your location since east of the dateline it will be a day earlier, and what time of day that would be where you are.
If you look at the web pages and are still interested, send me an email saying you'd like to attend and I will send you information on how to attend.
Cheers, Doug
--
Douglas Fenner, Ph.D.
Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Coral Reef Consulting
PO Box 997390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799-6298 USA
One recent study estimates over 61,000 people died from heat during Europe's record-breaking summer last year.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/record-breaking-heat-bakes-us-014459083.html
1 million Florida buildings will be overrun by sea-level rise, new study shows, at a cost of $261-624 BILLION
https://www.yahoo.com/news/1-million-florida-buildings-overrun-091203340.html
Scientists size up human predatory footprint Humans are the ultimate predators, trapping, hunting, or otherwise exploiting 15,000 species of vertebrates?300 times more species than jaguars and 113 times more than great white sharks.
https://www.science.org/content/article/news-glance-muscular-dystrophy-therapy-lab-grown-chicken-and-humans-toll-wildlife
------------------------------
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------------------------------
End of Coral-List Digest, Vol 179, Issue 24
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