Rising Ocean Temperatures Threaten Florida's (and globe's) Coral Reef

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Rising Ocean Temperatures Threaten Florida's Coral Reef
By RICK LYMAN
Published: May 22, 2006

KEY LARGO, Fla., May 21 — If global warming summons images of polar bears clinging to shrinking ice floes, this is its face in the Florida Keys: a sun-dappled stretch of shallows along the turquoise reef line, where scientists painstakingly attach russet polyps of regenerated coral to damaged reefs....

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On May 9, for the first time, two species of Caribbean coral — acropora palmata, or elkhorn, and acropora cervicornis, or staghorn — were added to the list of threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. It was a needed step, say marine biologists and environmentalists who focus on coral, and probably overdue, but just one narrow glimpse at the universe of woes affecting the undersea invertebrates in the Keys, throughout the Caribbean and across the globe.

"Elkhorn and staghorn used to be the dominant species on the Caribbean reef as recently as the early 80's," said Jennifer Moore, a natural resource specialist for the protected resources division of the National Marine Fisheries Service, which placed coral on the threatened list after prompting from the Center for Biological Diversity, based in Arizona. "But the species has declined 97 percent since the late 70's."

There is no one answer to what is killing these coral. The greatest culprit seems to be disease, especially "white diseases," which fleck the coral with pox and bands of deathly white. But there are other stresses, including degraded water quality, nutrient runoff from agriculture, human poaching and boating accidents.

Of perhaps greater impact are instances of coral bleaching affecting these and other corals that have occurred with increasing frequency in recent years. In these outbreaks, which are directly tied to rising ocean temperatures and reach their height in the warmest months, vast fields of coral shed their gaudy colors, turn bone-white and die....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/us/22coral.html