Climate will damage reefs at 'different rates'

PhysOrg.com: Climate change and acidifying ocean water are likely to have a highly variable impact on the world's coral reefs in space, time and diversity, according to an international team of coral scientists, including UQ researchers. The picture that is emerging from studies of past coral extinctions and present impacts on today's reef systems is complex and subtle.

It will demand much more sophisticated management to preserve reefs intact, the team of scientists said in a paper in the international journal Science. “New research confirms that coral reefs…. are indeed threatened by climate change, but that some current projections of global-scale collapse of reefs within the next few decades probably overestimate the rapidity and uniformity of the decline,” the researchers said.

“A considered view of all the most recent evidence suggests that some coral reef systems will decline more rapidly – especially those subject to other human pressures such as overfishing," said lead author Professor John Pandolfi of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland.. "However, others may change in composition, but manage to persist for longer.”

The paper, “Projecting coral reef futures under global warming and ocean acidification” by John M. Pandolfi, Sean R. Connolly, Dustin J. Marshall and Anne L. Cohen appears in the latest issue of the journal Science. “Coral reefs occupy a small part of the world's oceans, yet harbor a hugely disproportionate amount of its biodiversity,” the researchers said....

A NOAA shot of bioerosion in a coral reef