[Coral-List] Screed from Mike
Storlazzi, Curt D
cstorlazzi at usgs.gov
Thu Mar 14 16:37:51 UTC 2024
Mike,
First and foremost: buon compleanno, paisano!
Second, your point is well taken and (in my mind) is the most important, but frequently most often overlooked part of restoration: Don't attempt to do restoration if you have not identified and removed the stressor that caused the decline you are trying to restore from....i.e., "Don't put the canary back in the coal mine".
As you noted, most of the large declines currently targeted for restoration have been due to land-based pollution, which can often (theoretically) be handled at the local, state, or even regional level. Thus, we as a community, must tackle that issue (remove the land-based pollution stressor) before putting the canary back down the mine to face the same fate.
Curt
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Curt D. Storlazzi, Ph.D.
U.S. Geological Survey
Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
2885 Mission Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
+1-831-460-7521 office
+1-831-295-3429 cell
https://www.usgs.gov/staff-<https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/curt-d-storlazzi><https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/curt-d-storlazzi>profiles/curt-d-storlazzi<https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/curt-d-storlazzi>
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Subject: [EXTERNAL] Coral-List Digest, Vol 187, Issue 6
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:54:44 +0000
From: "Risk, Michael" <riskmj at mcmaster.ca>
To: "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov" <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Subject: [Coral-List] Screed from Mike
I had a birthday a few days ago, which made me do some thinking.
Here is what we know.
-reefs are in desperate shape, worldwide.
-the decline, in most instances, began mid-19th century, long before
heat stress had been invoked as a major factor.
-land-based stresses (LBSP) are a major threat.
-global warming, left unchecked, will slay every coral reef on the
planet.
-We knew about the declining reefs 30 years ago, we knew about CO2 and
climate for far longer-many thanks to Shell and Exxon, for their
climate models >50 years ago, showing the impacts. Pity they didn't
publicize their results.
Every week it seems there is some new idea that will "save the reefs:"
killing COTs with robots, saving holothurians, 3D-printing of fake
corals, breeding super corals that can live in hot polluted
oceans...though alarmingly, discussions around the root cause of reef
decline at the very sites of active restoration where it is clear that
water quality is insufficient to sustain coral reef ecosystems, remain
missing, with no effort to correct it.
So it is with a jaundiced eye that I view the present situation. Some
recent work has convinced me that we can no longer ignore the fact that
degradation of the ocean's water quality is a mortal enemy of
restoration, and if it continues to be ignored the battle to restore
coral reefs is already lost.
As an indication that this is more than my opinion, here are several
recent publications, as well as some old facts that support this point
of view.
There is ample evidence, from both the Indo-Pacific and the Caribbean,
that reducing nutrient load on reefs improves their health (Kaneohe
Bay, Worthing Barbados, etc etc). Then there's that wonderful paper by
Tomascik et al, 1996: "Rapid coral colonization of a recent lava flow
following a volcanic eruption, Banda Islands, Indonesia." Coral reefs
15: 169-175, which I call "Zero to 60 in 5 (years)." An andesitic lava
flow entered a bay, promptly dubbed "Air Panas" (Hot Water) by the
locals. Five years later, that flow supported a coral community with
>60% coral cover (the level most of us assume reefs attained in those
prelapsarian times before humans started messing things up), and >100
coral species. The key, of course, is that this location is free from
industry and major human habitation. The water is clean. Five years is
all that is needed to build a healthy reef-if.
May et al 2022 [1]https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278695 worked
on porewater toxicity in Biscayne Bay, using the sea urchin embryo
model. (Stick the little critters in the water, watch them die.) At
over 80% of their sites, the porewater was so toxic that any reef
growth would be impossible. All sorts of human nasties in the water:
sewage, pharmaceuticals, ag chemicals. Biscayne Bay isn't the world,
but it can serve as a model for any reef sitting on porous substrates,
next to human influence. i.e., most of them. That paper terrified
me-and it should terrify all of us.
Yang et al 2024 also scared me.
[2]https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46059-4They looked at the impacts
of herbicides on primary productivity, worldwide, and found a
significant inhibition at all sites. What's more, there were changes in
the plankton community. The concept of a reef being outside human
influence is hard to sustain.
Li et al 2023 ([3]https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.139729)
investigated the synergistic effects of nitrogen enrichment and
pesticides (prometryn) on coral metabolism, and found significant
impairment. "Prometryn exposure increases the oxidative stress induced
by nitrate enrichment." (from the Abstract).
Zhou et al, 2024 ([4]https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c10417) showed
that...well, what they found is in the title. "Environmental
Concentrations of Herbicide Prometryn Render Stress-Tolerant Corals
Susceptible to Ocean Warming." The herbicide overwhelms the coral's
photosystem repair mechanism. What's worse is that the herbicide may
actively inhibit the coral's ability to recover from stress.
In light of these papers, among many others, can the current strategies
for coral reef restoration succeed without factoring water quality into
the restoration formula?
Yours, this lovely and too-early Spring-Mike
References
1. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278695
2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46059-4
3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.139729
4. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c10417
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