How do Gulf corals beat the heat?
The algae photosynthesise, producing sugars that provide up
to 90 per cent of the coral's energy, and on return, the coral provides
shelter, nutrients - mostly nitrogen and phosphorus - and carbon dioxide for
photosynthesis.
Prof Burt believes that the way to speed up the recovery
might be to propagate the corals manually, collecting larvae during spawning
events, settling them in artificial nurseries, and then planting those
juveniles back out onto reefs. The sooner that happens, he says, the better.
Accurate predictions of the fate of coral reefs require a profound knowledge of
the adaptation capacity of the main reef builders
An extreme case of bleaching was seen in 1998, when the El
Niño weather phenomenon subjected 80 per cent of the world's coral reefs to
extreme temperatures. One coral in particular - the table coral, acropora - has
managed a particularly impressive recovery along the Abu Dhabi coast, after
having been wiped out in 1998.Working with an oceanographer from the marine
biodiversity section of the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi, they have been
developing detailed maps of coastal current patterns in the southern Gulf.
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