Climate mitigation efforts are unlikely to be enough to save critical ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef. We may need to consider more radical environmental engineering.
Ingredients in many sunscreens are bleaching coral and harming marine life.
www.shutterstock.com
Scientists have discovered a natural sunscreen – made by microbes – that may be better for humans and the marine critters they are hoping to see.
Staghorn and tabular corals suffered mass die-offs, robbing many individual reefs of their characteristic shapes.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies/ Mia Hoogenboom
The 2016 bleaching event resulted in 30% mortality on the Great Barrier Reef, with many corals dying of the heat before they bleached and the loss of branching corals creating less complex reef structure.
The increasingly bleached coral at Black Point on the Cobourg Peninsula is a worrying sign of what’s to come for other coral reefs in Australia.
Alan Withers
The federal government’s new funding aims to spread the net wide in investigating possible ways to protect the Great Barrier Reef’s corals. Winning this battle will require a wide range of weapons.
Corals near Lizard Island on the northern Great Barrier Reef experienced some of the worst bleaching in 2016.
XL Catlin Seaview Survey/AAP Photo
The 2016 bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef was the worst on record. Now a new analysis points the finger squarely at human-induced warming, and warns that the entire reef’s future is at stake.
Some reefs are strong sources of coral larvae.
Peter Mumby
A new study identifies dozens of individual reefs on the Great Barrier Reef that are especially important for coral larvae dispersal and which could help the entire ecosystem bounce back.
Besides wondrous creatures, new discoveries and spectacular filming, Sir David Attenborough’s follow up to The Blue Planet comes with a stark warning about the future
How the Great Barrier Reef can be helped to help repair the damaged reef.
AIMS/Neal Cantin
Corals on the Great Barrier Reef that are tolerant to warmer waters can be used to help repair other parts of the reef damaged by recent coral bleaching events.
The extent of future coral bleaching is likely to vary from place to place.
AAP Image/Bette Willis
Regional variations in sea temperature can make all the difference between a coral reef suffering major bleaching or surviving as a refuge for corals, new research shows.
Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef could lead to increased vulnerability of Queensland coastal cities and towns, and not only through its impacts on the tourism industry.
The Great Barrier Reef is reeling under a combination of bleaching, over-fishing and land clearing.
AP Image/Bette Willis