• Nearly two thirds of the sharks and rays that live among the world’s corals are threatened with extinction, according to new research published Tuesday, with a warning this could further imperil precious reefs.Coral reefs, which harbor at least a quarter of all marine animals and plants, are gravely menaced by an array of human threats, including overfishing, pollution and climate change. The authors found 59 percent of coral reef shark and ray species are threatened with extinction, an extinction risk almost double that of sharks and rays in general. Last year countries at a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species summit approved a plan to protect dozens of shark and ray species, adding 21 coral reef species in addition to the 18 species already covered by the regulations. “We know coral reef health is declining, largely due to climate change, however, coral reef sharks and rays can help keep reefs healthier for longer,” said Sherman. 

• Not only will millions of people that rely on coral reefs suffer, if food chains/webs collapse it will have a terrible effect on the entire world. We get 50% of our oxygen from the ocean due to photosynthesising organisms and the ocean regulates our climates, if food chains start collapsing it could affect everything that we benefit from the ocean.

• Caribbean Coral Reef Partnership The Caribbean Coral Reef Partnership (CCRP) is an interagency effort to protect coral reefs off the shores of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI).Coral Reef Evaluation and Monitoring Project (CREMP) The Coral Reef Evaluation and Monitoring Project (CREMP)was established in 1995 as part of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary’s Water Quality Protection Program (WQPP).The Coral Reef Working Group is comprised of state and federal agencies involved in coral reef management and strives to identify and address key threats to coral reefs.West Maui Ridge to Reef Initiative The State of Hawaii’s Coral Reef Strategy identified the coral reef ecosystem along the West Maui region as a priority management area.Clean Water Act Funding EPA awards annual Clean Water Act Section 319 funding to address nonpoint source water pollution to Hawai‘i Department of Health for projects to protect watersheds and coral reef health.  

• There have been many attempts to protect coral reefs; they are still being affected by climate change. Even though the ocean temperature has only risen 1.3 degrees it is dramatically affecting the coral reefs. Pollution is also affecting reefs making the corals weaker. 

• The researchers are developing what they call “hybrid reefs,” which combine concrete structures with living coral reefs and oyster beds to break up damaging waves. Reefs break up damaging waves Coral and oyster reefs protect coastlines against flooding and erosion by breaking up big waves. A well-placed reef can absorb as much as 97% of a wave’s energy, according to one 2014 meta-analysis published in Nature Communications that combined data from 27 previous research papers on reefs and wave energy. The base of these hybrid reefs will be made up of concrete structures designed to mimic the wave-breaking ability of natural reefs. The military is also investing in speeding up the growth of corals and oysters and making sure they stay healthy, so that the hybrid reefs can expand. Hybrid reef pilots are coming to Keys, Miami Beach The hybrid reefs showed promise during early lab tests in UM’s massive wind and wave tank on Virginia Key, which holds 38,000 gallons of water and can simulate Category 5 hurricane conditions.The hybrid reef cut wave energy between 11% and 98%, depending on the reef design. The team will have developed a technique for building hybrid reefs that can knock down 90% of wave energy at a cost of less than $300 per cubic meter of reef. If they succeed, they’ll have created a blueprint that city and state governments and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could install miles of artificial reefs to protect coastlines in areas where coral and oyster reefs naturally grow. 

• Although it would be Ideal that we have our natural reefs, this is a really good idea if reefs are too damaged to be revived in an appropriate amount of time. If the configurations can cut wave energy by 90% that can be incredibly helpful for natural disasters and wave breaking. Now that it’s affordable enough for countries to install reefs can get restored faster and oceans may have a better chance of surviving.

• An international study comparing data from Heron Reef and the Middle East’s Gulf of Aqaba has disproved the long-held theory that coral reefs only have the capacity to emit CO2 “Our research, which included analysis of data collected at Heron Reef on the Great Barrier Reef, has confirmed the crucial role of local meteorology and the prevailing weather patterns in determining reef water temperatures,” Professor Lensky said.”To further test and understand how dust may influence air-sea CO2 exchange, we need to do more research into how this may change in different seasons and locations, such as over coral reefs like Ningaloo reef in northwest Australia.”

• Coral reefs becoming carbon sinks will be the end of coral reefs. The reefs are already affected so much by the increasing acidity and temperature. If they are carbon sinks coral reefs will continue to get destroyed and 25% present of life in the ocean will most likely die. The reason why coral is dying is because of the heat the coral gets stressed and basically kicks out the algae that it has a mutual relationship with and relies on to survive. Corals are also dying because of other elements but that is the main reason. Even though there are corals that are resilient to the rising temperatures it is to an extent.

• Prior studies have indicated the projected dire effects of climate change on coral reefs by mid-century; by analyzing a multitude of projected disturbances, their study reveals a much more severe prognosis for the world’s coral reefs as they have significantly less time to adapt while highlighting the urgent need to tackle available solutions to human disturbances.

• This is a huge step for coral reefs fighting climate change. A professor and a PhD student created a way to increase coral growth using micro-fragmentation to grow coral 20 times faster than they would grow in nature. They also created a program that’s goal is to plant one million corals. I think that this gives hope for almost regenerating coral reefs but there is still the issue of solving global warming and ocean acidification.

News, U. H. (2022, June 17). UH to develop living coastal-protection system inspired by coral reefs. University of Hawaiʻi System News. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2022/06/17/engineered-coral-reef-ecosystem/ 

This article talked about a 25 Million dollar act to create an engineered ecosystem to help protect Hawaii’s coasts. UH engineers, biologists and ecologists are working together to create structures for resilient corals to grow on. They are creating these structures for the corals to heal and it is supposed to attract coral larvae in hopes to kick start a coral reef. 

I found this very interesting because they didn’t talk about fixing the actual problem that is killing their coral reefs. They are simply putting structures in in hopes of attracting coral and killing a whole new generation with pollution, runoff and insatiable fishing. However the idea is brilliant and I think that it does bring new hope. However, coral will continue to die if we do not fix our part of the problem first. They also had a very good idea for bleached coral. They said feeding and providing shade may bring them back, that is a good idea and as the coral mutual relationship with bacteria starts to fail it would be nice for not much direct sunlight to make the process faster.  

21, P. A. (2022, April 5). Caring for Hawaii’s coral reefs. Pacific RISA – Managing Climate Risk in the Pacific. Retrieved August 31, 2022, from https://www.pacificrisa.org/2022/03/25/saving-hawaiis-coral-reefs/ 

Climate stressors are not the only thing that affects coral reefs. Pollution also greatly affects the health of a coral reef such as runoff, spills, fishing tactics. Pollution also causes coral bleaching, the pollution causes heat waves one being called “The blob” that occured in 2019. Now that climate change has become worse and worse, heat waves will become more and more comen and very taxing on the reef and its community. 

This article really shows that pollution also causes problems in the reefs. It also talks about heat waves and that they will become more and more common as more pollution and ocean acidification continues and grows. We need to be more careful with runoff, spills and fishing tactics because it is very harmful not just for the reefs and environment but also for us. The coral reefs around the world are home to 25% of the oceans’ life and feed many people around the world.

Gibbens, S. (2022, March 10). Climate-resilient coral species offer hope for the world’s reefs. Environment. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/climate-resilient-coral-species-offer-hope-for-world-reefs 

Reefs are being affected by human activities such as carbon emissions and overfishing for example. However there are two coral species that are so far surviving this marine heat wave. The ocean absorbs carbon from the air but there is so much that the ocean is taking so much causing acidification. They experimented differently; they took a couple tanks filled with normal reef/ ocean life and put it outside coconut island to see what would happen after 22 months. Many were struggling but some were doing well, that gives new hope for our future. 

This leaves new hope for global warming, coral is very sensitive to the environment. That is why global warming is so bad because a few degrees higher means warming water and that leads to coral bleaching. Even though it is a wonderful surprise that it is possible for some coral to survive in warmer waters they can only survive in a couple degrees warmer water. Its also scary that the water temperature is increasing so rapidly in almost 2 years. That coral will most likely die out within a couple years a year even if the water temperature is rising that quickly.   

Handley, E., & here, P.  (2022, March 11). 61% of Hawaiian coral exposed to warming conditions survive. Open Access Government. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/hawaiian-coral-global-ocean-warming-climate-change/131407/ 

There was a 22 month study of three coral in simulated conditions to see how they would react in different conditions. They did this study because most if not all of marine life depends on coral reefs. They had four different tanks with four different conditions, one control tank with current ocean conditions; an ocean acidification condition (-0.2 pH units); an ocean warming condition (+2 degrees Celsius); and a condition that combined warming and acidification surprisingly their research revealed that 61% of coral exposed to warming conditions survived compared to the 92% exposed to current ocean temperatures.

This is super interesting because it raises the question how are some corals able to survive and others aren’t? It also gives a little hope that not everything is being destroyed so fast, it gives us more time to analyze the situation and fix the problem. I also found it interesting about the time period, at what point did the coral start getting affected.

News, U. H. (2022, April 5). Delicate balance of coral reef processes creates management challenges. University of Hawaiʻi System News. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2022/04/05/coral-reef-processes/  

Coral reefs are very important to the environment, however they are being damaged by algae blooms, predation, biomass production, and the cycling of nitrogen and phosphorus .No reef is able to protect itself from all of those things.  There are more than 500 reefs and they support a very big part of the ocean and support people on land. It also talked about if some species are more important with others. 

This article goes over the causes of a coral reef being unhealthy and that a reef needs all the organisms it has to get over some of the causes of its downfall at the moment. That brought them to a question of are some organisms more important than others. I thought that it was interesting how they thought that maybe some organisms contribute more to the reef than others. They tested it and it turned out that no organism was more important than the other.