Happenings and Information about Coral Reefs

- About one third of the world’s coral species are threatened with extinction, many corals will disappear by the end of the century unless global warming, pollution and over-fishing are curbed.

-Coral reefs, the only living structures that can be seen from space, are often compared with tropical rainforests for the diversity,wealth of wildlife and plants that live in and around them.

-Their loss could also threaten the 25 per cent of marine species that need them for survival, as well as endangering the livelihoods of people who rely on them either for food or as a source of income.

-Scientist have also investigated that the remaining 141 reef-building coral species but could not gather enough information on them to make an accurate assessment, but they believe many of these corals are also highly likely to be threatened with extinction.

-What to camade the study even more urgent was scientists’ ability lculate what state the corals were in before 1998, when a significant rise in sea-surface temperatures was linked with a worldwide outbreak of coral “bleaching”, when corals as far apart as the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean lost their colour because of heat stress.

-Scientists found that only 13 species of reef-building corals before 1998 would have fallen into the three most-endangered categories. This means there has been an almost 20-fold increase in the threat to corals in a decade.

-They cited rising sea temperatures, caused by global warming, pollution from such human activities as sewage and agricultural run-off, and over-fishing as the biggest threats. But they warn that all of these may be eclipsed by the threat of rising ocean acidity caused by increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, which could eventually dissolve the calcium carbonate skeletons of reef-building corals.

-When corals die off, so do the other plants and animals that depend on coral reefs for food and shelter, and this can lead to the collapse of entire ecosystems. This is one of the most alarming findings in terms of marine life.

-The threat of the extinction of corals could match the mass extinction that wiped out almost half of the corals 65 million years ago, along with the dinosaurs, in a geological event known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary.

- The scientists said corals are now rated second only to amphibians as the most threatened group of animals on Earth. The proportion of corals threatened with extinction has increased dramatically in recent decades and exceeds most terrestrial groups.

-If the sea-surface temperatures continue to rise, causing more frequent episodes of coral bleaching, it will be increasingly difficult for corals to survive further environmental insults.

-These results show that as a group, reef-building corals are more at risk of extinction than all terrestrial groups, apart from amphibians, and are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

-The loss of corals will have profound implications for millions of people who depend on coral reefs for their livelihoods.

-We either reduce CO2 emissions now or many corals will be lost forever. Improving water quality, global education and the adequate funding of local conservation practices are also essential to protect the foundation of beautiful and valuable coral reef ecosystems.

source: yahoo.com