Global Coral Bleaching Crisis Spreading
list of 82 countries and territories registering bleaching-level heat stress in their waters.It will take scientists years to understand the global extent of coral reef death, but they say they have already observed widespread mortality in parts of the Caribbean, Red Sea, and along Australia's Great Barrier Reef.(Reuters - Reporting by Gloria Dickie and Ali Withers; Editing by Alexandra Hudson
The Future of Coral Reef Protection
fish abundance, diversity, length and biomass.By centralizing all this data in real time, they hope to generate predictive models that will help conservation efforts, enabling early intervention.Citizen scientists are also helping with reef conservation. Volunteers are helping with surveys of the Great Barrier Reef led by Citizens of the Reef. A census conducted late last year generated over 43,000 images. Using citizen observers and AI to review the images can achieve nearly the same level of accuracy as expert analysis.“Anyone with a few minutes to spare can help,” said Nicole Senn, head
Integrated Data System for Coral Reefs Enables AI Analysis
monitoring system to help save the world’s coral reefs from further decline, primarily due to bleaching caused by global warming.Coral reefs worldwide are dying at an alarming rate, with 75% of reefs experiencing bleaching-level heat stress in the past two years.The World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has been decimated by severe bleaching events since 2016, exacerbated by ongoing crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks and coastal development.A collaborative project led by the University of South Australia, with input from Queensland and Victorian researchers, is integrating remote sensing
Secretive Slugs May Unlock WA’s Hidden Marine Biodiversity
Australia’s coastline until now.Visiting from Pennsylvania State University, Adjunct Professor Benoît Dayrat from Curtin’s School of Molecular and Life Sciences said the research filled a crucial knowledge gap. WA’s northern coastline is incredibly biodiverse, rivaling the Great Barrier Reef, yet there are many species we still know very little about. More than 5000 marine species in the Pilbara and many more in the Kimberley have been documented over the past few decades, however groups such as the Onchidiidae family of marine slugs, remain poorly understood. This project places
Hottest Oceans in 400 Years Threaten Great Barrier Reef
Water temperatures in and around Australia's Great Barrier Reef have risen to their warmest in 400 years over the past decade, placing the world's largest reef under threat, according to research published on Thursday.The reef, the world's largest living ecosystem, stretches for some 1,500 miles (2,400 km) off the coast of the northern state of Queensland.A group of scientists at universities across Australia drilled cores into the coral and, much like counting the rings on a tree, analysed the samples to measure summer ocean temperatures going back to 1618.Combined with ship and satellite
Coral Bleachings Devastate Bali Reefs as Sea Temperatures Rise
more resilient and tend to recover faster, Marthen said it will not be enough to withstand the rising ocean temperature."It's predicted that the coral bleaching will occur more often, between one or two years with the current temperature," he said, quoting the latest research by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.However, Sugiarto says he is determined to continue his campaign to conserve corals, and is advocating coral conservation to younger Indonesians and seeking funds to establish a village community to monitor illegal fishing
Coral Reefs Suffer Fourth Global Bleaching Event
Cantin at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences. Cantin noted that marine heatwaves were registering some 2.5 C (4.5 F) above the normal summertime maximum.Recent aerial surveys have shown "very high" or "extreme" levels of bleaching in nearly half of surveyed reefs in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park area.That makes this the fifth bleaching event in the Great Barrier Reef in just nine years - far more frequent than the twice per decade that scientists expected by the 2030s.Indian Ocean reefs off Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya and the Seychelles have also suffered bleaching, though
CSIRO Deploys World-First Sensors in Great Barrier Reef
Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has installed specialized sensors on Darumbal Sea Country in the Southern Great Barrier Reef to help monitor and forecast sediment run-off, which impacts the UNESCO World Heritage site’s marine ecosystem.The reef is one of seven test sites for CSIRO’s AquaWatch Australia Mission, which is creating a world-first ‘weather service’ for water quality using a combination of specialized sensors and satellite data.Dr Alex Held, CSIRO’s AquaWatch Mission Lead, said the project has the potential to support planning decisions in
Accelerated Evolution and Automated Aquaculture Could Help Coral Weather the Heat
Coral on the Great Barrier Reef has regrown strongly after the big losses of 2016 and 2017, when water temperatures were significantly above the long-term average. While this is good news, it’s largely luck. The reef experienced mass bleaching in 2020 and 2022, but temperatures cooled just in time to prevent extensive coral deaths.But the reef’s luck may be about to run out. Hotter El Niño conditions are returning to the Pacific, driving warmer ocean temperatures. The past few months have seen global temperature records smashed. Already, reefs in Florida, the Caribbean and parts of
February 2025
