Author Archives: ovehblog

Key found to moonlight romance

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Sexy Corals Keep ‘Eye’ on Moon, Scientists Say
New York Times
October 19, 2007

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even lowly corals do it — but infrequently, forgoing sex for as long as a year.

Then, at night, just after the full moon, under warm tropic breezes, the corals dissolve in an orgy of reproduction, sowing waters with trillions of eggs and sperm that swirl and dance and merge to form new life. The frenzy can leave pink flotsam.

Scientists discovered the mysterious rite of procreation in 1981 and ever since have puzzled over its details. The moon clearly rules the synchronized mass spawning, which happens during different months in different parts of the globe, but usually in the summer. But how do corals monitor the moon’s phases and know when to start mingling?

Today, seven scientists from Australia, Israel and the United States report in the journal Science that corals have primitive photoreceptors, if not true eyes. In experiments, they found that the photosensitive chemicals respond to moonlight as admirably as, well, human lovers.

“This looks to be the smoking gun,” Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a team member at the University of Queensland, said in an interview. “It triggers the largest spawning event on the planet.”
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Nobel Peace Prize 2007

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“Indications of changes in the earth’s future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.

Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming. Thousands of scientists and officials from over one hundred countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming. Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced firmer evidence in its support. In the last few years, the connections have become even clearer and the consequences still more apparent.” (Read more)

Australian Coral Reef Society conference

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I will be away at the ACRS conference in Fremantle, Western Australia for the next few days, where I will be presenting a talk titled “Coral Reef Futures: The low road is the only road” and will be posting updates to Climate Shifts from the conference where possible.

In the meanwhile, if anyone has any recommendations for stories worth blogging here at Climate Shifts, or would like to voice alternate opinions for discussion, comment below or email me at climateshifts@gmail.com.

Ocean acidification blog

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Jean-Pierre Gattuso, a senior research scientist at theLaboratoire d’Océanographie over in France has started a coral & ocean-acidification related blog entitled “Ocean acidification: An information outlet on ocean acidification“. His site is well worth reading (see Corals May Have Defense Against Global Warming, Acidic oceans may threaten fisheries) as an upto date resource on global warming and the impacts upon the worlds oceans.

A world with corals: What will it take?

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Heidi Schuttenberg (co-author of A Reef manager’s Guide to Coral Bleaching) and I recently published a letter in Science entitled “A world with corals: What will it take?” (link to .pdf). We wrote this article in response to a “doomsday” newsfocus by Richard Stone (A world without corals – link to pdf), captioned “Besieged by pathogens, predators, and people, the ‘rainforests of the sea’ may soon face their ultimate foe: rising ocean acidity driven by CO2emissions”

Too often people opt for the “game over” or doomsday strategy when referring to climate change and coral reefs. My sentiments echo those of Heidi: “The future of reefs depends very much on what we do now: what we do to limit climate change & what we do to minimize local stressors to reefs. The resolutions passed at ITMEMS and ICRI build on innovative work in the science and management communities to articulate a meaningful agenda for building reef resilience to climate change. Courageous action to implement these recommendations is needed and justified.”

What are your thoughts on the topic? Please feel free to discuss this article or comment here.

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Corals are more than just “coral”

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I’ve updated the Science Review section of the blog with a new article entitled “Nitrogen fixation by symbiotic cyanobacteria provides a source of nitrogen for the scleractinian coral Montastraea cavernosa“. In short, the article shows that symbiotic cyanobacteria living within the tissues of the Caribbean coral Montastraea cavernosa are able to fix nitrogen, providing a previously unknown supplementary source of nutrition for the symbiotic zooxanthellae within the coral tissues. The more we delve into the physiology of the coral ‘holobiont’ (a term used to describe the coral host and the consortium of other organisms associating with it – zooxanthellae, bacteria, fungi, algae), the more pathways and surprises we find – corals are fascinating creatures. Read more here.

Global warming and the Acroporid decline in the Caribbean

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The Center for Science & Public Policy have released a document entitled Are U.S. Coral Reefs Endangered by Global Warming? , which is picking up a fair amount of controversy amongst all parties involved. I think this is a fairly important issue that needs to be resolved (debunking the pseudo-science): more from me on this shortly, along with analysis from coral researchers who have been examining this phenomenon for over three decades.

Updated:

Let’s start with the basics of the Center for Science-Based Public Policy (in the efforts of transparency). It’s all to easy to allege that the Centre is a mere puppet-front for petroleum industry propaganda, considering has received a grand total of $793,575 in funding from ExxonMobil since 1998 (not too dissimilar to our very own Australian right-wing “think tanks”, also funded by ExxonMobil subsidiaries).
Amongst other people of notoriety associated with the Center for Science-Based Public Policy is Senator James Inhofe who was awarded the “Center Honoree” in 2004. For those of you who don’t know Sen Inhofe’s legendary reputation, he is not only as a renowned climate change skeptic, but also the author of such famous quotes as:

“I don’t have to tell you about reading the Scriptures, but one of mine that I’ve always enjoyed is Romans 1, 22 and 23. You quit worshipping God and start worshipping the creation — the creeping things, the four-legged beasts, the birds and all that. That’s their (the environmentalists’) god. That’s what they worship. If you read Romans 1:25, it says, ‘and they gave up their God and started worshipping the creation.’ That’s what we are looking at now, that’s what’s going on. And we can’t let it happen.”

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Endangered coral becomes climate warning system – News from Ningaloo Reef

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Reuters Summit-Endangered coral becomes climate warning system

By James Grubel

CANBERRA, Oct 1 (Reuters) – The future is looking grim for coral reefs, home to bright tropical fish and a lure for tourists worldwide but also an early warning system for climate shift, leading coral scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg says.

Warming seas and increased ocean acidity will devastate more than 90 percent of the world’s corals over the coming century unless urgent action is taken, Hoegh-Guldberg told Reuters.

“You’ll get tougher corals surviving, but most of them are not tough enough to survive the sorts of temperatures we’re going to throw at them over the next 100 years,” Hoegh-Guldberg said.

The dire outlook points to a severe impact on tourism and the destruction of habitat for tropical fish, which are crucial to food supplies for millions of people around the world.

Hoegh-Guldberg, professor of marine science at Australia’s University of Queensland, has made a career studying tropical corals and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. But he is worried there may be little coral left for future generations.

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Reef restoration

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“Scientists try to save coral micro species”
U.S. scientists have launched a project in Puerto Rico designed to save threatened microscopic species. The Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo recently acquired 12,000 microscopic Elkhorn coral larvae harvested by zoo scientists as part of an international collaborative program to save the species. The researchers hope to return the animals, once they are grown, to their wild ocean habitat.

Zoo reproductive scientist Mary Hagedorn and invertebrate keeper Mike Henley traveled to Puerto Rico last month with to collect and artificially inseminate coral. Hagedorn is pioneering the cyropreservation of coral sperm and eggs, trying to create a genome resource bank that will help preserve the genetic diversity of coral.

“More subway cars slated for reefs”
More than 1,600 old New York City subway cars are destined for the deep where they will make up new artificial reefs off the Atlantic Coast. The MTA this week approved a $6.3 million contract to farm out the aging cars to reef projects off New Jersey, Delaware and other states, Newsday reported Saturday.

Officials say the cavernous cars that once hauled scores of Big Apple strap-hangers provide excellent shelter for young fish and also will make a great destination for recreational divers. The Long Island newspaper said some environmentalists are concerned about asbestos in some of the older cars despite a New Jersey study that concluded this week that cars used to create earlier reefs had minimal environmental impact.

More climate change cynicism

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Wired magazine summarises the Washington conference on the issue of climate change succinctly:

Rice delivered her message at a White House-hosted climate change meeting, held just days after the United Nations met to discuss post-Kyoto greenhouse gas restrictions. Bush, predictably, skipped the UN meeting: he’s refused to ratify Kyoto, and won’t accept strict, mandatory climate change measures, even though nearly ever other nation agrees that they’re necessary. Even China and India are ready to negotiate.”(“Condi’s Latest Doublespeak: Fight Climate Change Like Terror” – Wired)

On the topic, it’s interesting to note the selective editing of Rice’s empty rhetoric by the media:

“If we stay on our present path, we face an unacceptable choice: either we sacrifice global growth to secure the health of our planet, or we sacrifice the health of our planet to continue with fossil-fuelled growth.” (“Warm words unconvincing” – Herald Sun)

“If we stay on our present path, we face an unacceptable choice: either we sacrifice global economic growth to secure the health of our planet or we sacrifice the health of our planet to continue with fossil-fuelled growth.” (“US pushes for clearer goals on clean air” – The Australian)

In stark contrast to the full text from the US State Government transcript:

“If we stay on our present path, we face an unacceptable choice: Either we sacrifice global economic growth to secure the health of our planet or we sacrifice the health of our planet to continue with fossil-fueled growth. This is a choice that we must refuse to make. Instead, we must cut the Gordian Knot of fossil fuels, carbon emissions, and economic activity. This current system is no longer sustainable, and we must transcend it entirely through a revolution in energy technology. So our third task is to work with private industry to develop and bring to market new energy technologies that not only pose no risk to economic growth, but can actually accelerate it.” (US State Government

Keep watching for the UN meeting in Bali this December. Over this side of the world, climate ‘shift’ is “no cause for panic” for John Howard (Link) – even the face of food shortages, water restrictions and escalating prices ( Link). In a surprising move, the federal government have comitted to new national “clean energy” goals by 2020 (Link), including solar, wind and clean coal, but also dropped the term “renewable”, potentially paving the way for nuclear energy (Link). The Sydney Morning Herald has already labelled the federal governments climate strategy “a disaster” (link)