We must face a confronting truth: if humanity does not divert from its current course, our generation will likely witness the demise of one of Earth’s great natural wonders.
Wood Reef, near Cape York, suffered no bleaching last summer.
Neal Cantin/AIMS
One of the most serious marine heatwaves on record hit the Great Barrier Reef last summer. Now a new report shows that coral cover was high before the impacts of cyclones and mass bleaching.
Gray reef sharks and blacktip reef sharks near Tahiti, French Polynesia.
Alexis Rosenfeld/Getty Images
We all know the Barrier Reef – but Australia also has three other World Heritage reefs, Ningaloo and Shark Bay in Western Australia and Lord Howe Island off the New South Wales coast.
Increasing coral bleaching will be worst for the most biodiverse reefs along the equator, impacting the livelihoods and nutrition of the people who depend on them.
Staghorn coral spawns near North Key Largo, Fla.
Liv Williamson/University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science via AP
Coral reefs share genetic material across wide areas, with help from ocean currents. This ability is especially important during episodes like the mass bleaching currently occurring.
Sea cucumbers convert organic material that accumulates on the seafloor into biomass.
Philip Wade/Flickr
Sea cucumbers have been overharvested for centuries. At the same time, coral reefs have declined as well. Research suggests that saving the former may help restore the latter.
Mark Gibbs, Australian Institute of Marine Science
Around the world, coral reefs are suffering. But scientists in high-income nations are developing new ways to build coral resilience. We have a duty to share our skills and build capacity elsewhere.
Overall, coastal habitat restoration greatly increases animal numbers and diversity. But not all projects deliver the goods and we need to find out why.
Healthy corals like these on Australia’s Lady Elliot Reef could disappear by the 2030s if climate change is not curbed.
Rebecca Spindler
Just as the world’s zoos breed critically endangered animals in captivity to repopulate the wild, scientists are building a global effort to freeze corals for reef restoration.
Coral bleaching in a shallow lagoon of French Polynesia.
Damsea/Shutterstock
Artificial reef stars have been added to damaged coral reefs in Sulawesi, Indonesia. A new study shows that within just four years, restored reefs are thriving as much as healthy reefs.
The best strategy to protecting Earth’s coral reefs is to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions. But in the meantime, we must urgently make corals more resilient.
Tracked hawksbill turtles revealed that they feed at depths of 30-60 metres on remote banks of the Chagos Archipelago.
Jeanne A Mortimer
Photogrammetry, a technique where 3D information is extracted from photographs, is reducing the guesswork in counting – and understanding – the world below the ocean surface.
The bow of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Duane, a decommissioned ship deliberately sunk off Florida to serve as an artificial reef.
Stephen Frink via Getty Images
Artificial reefs are structures that humans put in place underwater that create habitat for sea life. A new study shows for the first time how much of the US ocean floor they cover.