Healthy coral: Coral is thriving and has vibrant colors.
Image Credits:
Healthy Coral: harbour-895507_1280.jpg via Pixabay
Stressed Coral: NMSAS – Rose Atoll – Catlin Survey (31319807026).jpg This photo may be beautiful, but it shows significant bleaching in the coral reef surrounding Rose Atoll in National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa. Corals require specific temperature ranges, and when water temperatures become too high, stressed corals often expel the colorful algae they depend on to survive — this is known as coral bleaching. Recently, our actions have led to warmer water temperatures across the globe. When we burn fossil fuels like oil and gas to power our homes and fuel our cars, we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This carbon dioxide builds up and acts like a heat-trapping blanket, warming our planet, including the ocean. In recent years, we’ve seen coral bleaching events all around the world as a result of this warmer ocean. It’s up to all of us to work together to reduce our fossil fuel usage so that we can protect corals and other ocean inhabitants. Together, we can support alternative energy initiatives like solar solutions that will help protect our coral reefs.Photo Credit: Wendy Cover/NOAA. Image by National Marine Sanctuaries under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Bleached Coral: Colorful Coral Bleaching Event.jpg A rare moment caught on camera when corals under heat stress turn vibrant colors usually preceding full coral bleaching and death. Image by Ryan Goehrung under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Recovering Coral: Madoogali reef.jpg. – Image of corals from the Maldivian island of Madoogali showing a clear recovery ongoing from 1998 coral bleaching. Image by Bruno de Giusti under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 it via Wikimedia Commons.
Dead Coral: PMNM – Lisianski Algal Bloom On Bleached Coral (31356290765).jpg What happens to a coral reef after a mass bleaching event? Often, algae overgrows the dead corals, dramatically impacting the reef ecosystem, like on this bleached reef near Lisianski Island in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. While this can benefit some herbivorous fish in the short term, over the long term the reef ecosystem loses its integrity. By minimizing stressors like pollution and runoff, overfishing, and the impacts of tourism and recreation, we can increase the odds that corals will recover after a bleaching event.Photo Credit: John Burns/Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology – HIMB/NOAA by National Marine Sanctuaries under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
