Biology Climate Change Ecology
Corals better learn to keep up or they may drown!
The coral reefs protecting many islands in the Pacific need to grow quickly in order to keep up with the…
Tag: Coral
Book Review Conservation Coral Ecology Fisheries
Switching it up: When do predation and habitat control damselfish abundance?
Another tale of how the loss of predators due to overfishing might impact coral reefs, but this one has a…
Climate Change Human impacts ocean engineering technology
An exact replica of a coral reef right in the office!
In order to better understand coral reef complexity and structure researchers developed a cost effective way to 3D print coral…
Climate Change Ecology Fisheries Human impacts
What would coral reefs be like without human impact?
One would think that an isolated reef ecosystem shielded from the influence of people would provide an ideal benchmark against…
Coastal Management Ecology
Lethal Injection: Crown of Thorns Edition
Predation by crown of thorns sea stars (COTS) is one of the main causes of coral reef decline in Australia’s…
Book Review Climate Change Conservation Evolution Ocean Acidification
Coral Reef Restoration Through Human-Assisted Evolution
Coral reefs populations are declining. Is it possible that we could help restore coral reefs by speeding up their evolutionary…
Book Review Coral Human impacts Plastic Pollution
Corals consume microplastics! Talk about an unhealthy diet!
The dangerous diet fad among marine organisms is spreading! New study shows corals consume microplastics.
Biochemistry Biogeochemistry Chemistry Human impacts Ocean Acidification
Macrobioerosion rates and what they mean for reefs
Today macrobioerosion is a good thing that provides cement for the foundation of reef systems. So more macrobioerosion could mean…
Biology Coral Genetics
Is a coral’s color all for show?
Two of the exact same corals, sitting right next to each other, often appear to be different based on their…
Coral Ecology Human impacts
Don’t let your guard down: a cautionary tale from reef fish in degraded habitat.
Reef fish on degraded reef are somewhat like misguided slasher flick protagonists that ignore all warning cues and are therefore…
Climate Change Conservation Coral Ecology Human impacts
Can a complex model hold the fate of the crown-of-thorns starfish?
Not all starfish are cute! The crown-of-thorns starfish has been eating all the coral on the Great Barrier Reef! Researchers…
Biology Book Review Coastal Management Conservation Coral Ecology Economy Fisheries Human impacts Policy Pollution
The Great Barrier Reef is worth $15 billion – $20 billion AUS a year: A quick lesson in ecosystem economics
When discussing the value of an ecosystem, tensions run high. Some people evaluate ecosystems with heavy emphasis on non-use values,…
Coral Ecology
Get crabby! A coral’s guide to self-defense
Crabs in the genus Trapezia are not only good housekeepers, clearing sediment off host corals, but they are also effective…
Book Reviews Coral Science Communication
Deep Blue Reads: The Reef: A Passionate History, by Iain McCalman
It’s often easy to think of science outside of its social and historical contexts, as something pure, empirical, and incorruptible.…
Chemistry Human impacts
Measuring “Roundup” in the Great Barrier Reef
Scientists estimated the degradation time for glyphosate, an herbicide in "Roundup", in the Great Barrrier Reef. This is the first…
Book Reviews Science Communication
Deep Blue Reads: The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert
As a novelist writing about oceanography, I spend a decent amount of time parsing scientific studies. Over the past several…
Biology Ecology Fisheries
One fish, two fish, red fish… glow fish?
Biofluorescence of coral is well studied, but in this paper, Sparks et al. aimed to investigate the little known details…
Climate Change
Coral larvae will stay at their birth reef in warmer seas
New research suggests that global warming is leaving large coral reef systems less interconnected, which can affect their ability to…
Ecology Fisheries
How Coral Size Influences Fish Size
Many fish find a coral colony to host in, living their whole life in that same coral. They must pick…
Biology
Coral Invasion in the Gulf of Mexico
The black sun coral is "invading" the Gulf! Once settled, it could out-compete other benthic epifauna and change the dynamic…