AP Story "Caribbean's Reef-Building Coral at Risk"

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Caribbean's Reef-Building Coral at Risk
 
Jun 7, 10:58 PM (ET)

By DANICA COTO

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Six species of reef-building coral could vanish from the Caribbean due to rising temperatures and toxic runoff from islands' development, according to a study released Thursday.

Nearly two dozen scientists from U.S. and Caribbean universities, as well as nonprofits, identified the threatened species while reviewing studies and scientific data at a March conference in Dominica.

The species - about 10 percent of the 62 varieties capable of forming reefs in the region - include staghorn and elkhorn corals, which were once among the most prominent.

"One of the Atlantic Ocean's most beautiful marine habitats no longer exists in many places because of dramatic increases in coral diseases, mostly caused by climate change and warmer waters," said Michael Smith, director of the Caribbean Biodiversity Initiative at Conservation International, a U.S.-based nonprofit.

Peter Edmunds, a biology professor at California State University-Northridge, said the study provided a broad perspective that is "terribly important" but does not indicate how close a particular species is to dying off in the region.

"It begs the question, is there a part of the Caribbean where the story is different?" he said.

Researchers have blamed rising temperature, disease and pollutants for damage to the coral reefs, which host countless marine plants and animals.

"The numbers of the population are so diminished that it might take a long, long time, given the right conditions, for them to recover," said William Precht, a Florida-based scientist with the Battelle Memorial Institute who participated in the study.

The team also reported significant damage to mangroves, which filter pollutants, reporting the plants cover 42 percent less area in the Caribbean than they did 25 years ago.

Conservation projects are under way to protect coral colonies in the Caribbean. The U.S. government's Coral Reef Task Force is helping officials in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands cut back on pollution and recreational activities that could threaten coral.

The study was sponsored by the Caribbean Biodiversity Initiative, along with the nonprofit World Conservation Union in Switzerland and the Royal Caribbean Cruises' Ocean Fund.

The story touches on a cause of damage to reefs which comes from the very infrastructure we, as divers, utilize when we go on dive trips.  Developers remove mangroves to make way for beautiful white sand beaches, destroying nursery habitat for many reef species, and sand smothers corals when storms wash beaches away ~since the mangrove is no longer there to protect the shoreline.  Everybody likes pretty green grass, lush garden landscapes, and golf courses so fertilizer runoff increases algae growth which out-competes slow growing corals.   And it's obvious to most of us what increased sewage and garbage output does to a small island.

I know we've all heard this before, but it's important to make your dollars count and speak for you when you vacation by choosing envoronmentally responsible operators and businesses when you travel.

Anyway, just something to think about and I found it nice that this made the AP's top news stories on my Excite homepage today.

BTW~ my wife and I have helped teach a for a number of years now with Dr. Edward Burkett.  As a matter of fact, I THINK that's her pictured in that link!  Many students have gone onto marine biology graduate programs as a result of being in this program, so if anyone is loking to get into Marine Biology this is a good place to start!