{"id":16136,"date":"2016-11-30T09:26:16","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T09:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=16136"},"modified":"2016-11-30T09:26:16","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T09:26:16","slug":"australias-great-barrier-reef-worst-coral-die-off-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/australias-great-barrier-reef-worst-coral-die-off-ever.html","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef has worst coral die-off ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef has worst coral die-off ever<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Scientists confirm a mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef this year has killed more corals than ever before, with more than <\/span>two thirds<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> destroyed across large swathes of the biodiverse site.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"USA TODAY - Embed Player\" src=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/videos\/embed\/94590806\/?fullsite=true\" width=\"540\" height=\"304\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Video provided by AFP Newslook<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">One of the world\u2019s treasures, the <strong>Great Barrier Reef<\/strong>, just suffered from its worst coral die-off ever recorded, Australian scientists announced Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Stress from unusually warm ocean water heated by man-made climate change and the natural El Ni\u00f1o climate pattern caused the die-off. &#8220;<strong>The coral was cooked<\/strong>,\u201d Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, told the BBC.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">At more than 1,400 miles long, Australia&#8217;s Great Barrier Reef is the world&#8217;s largest coral reef and the planet&#8217;s biggest structure made by living organisms. In the northernmost section of the reef, which had been considered the most &#8220;pristine,&#8221; some 67% of the coral died.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The good news, scientists said, was that central and southern sections of the reef fared far better, with &#8220;only&#8221; 6% and 1% of the coral dead, respectively.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Coral reefs result from the work of little polyps, creatures only a few millimeters long, budded on top of one another. Over centuries, the shells of these creatures combine to form the exotic shapes of coral reefs. Tiny differences in the anatomy of each polyp species affect the shape of their shells and produce the exotic shapes of each reef.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_16138\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16138\" style=\"width: 540px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16138\" src=\"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/636159407713930357-Scientists-assess-coral-mortality-following-the-bleaching-event-Northern-GBR-Nov-2016.jpg\" alt=\" Scientists Assess Coral Mortality Following The Bleaching Event Northern Gbr Nov 2016\" width=\"540\" height=\"405\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/636159407713930357-Scientists-assess-coral-mortality-following-the-bleaching-event-Northern-GBR-Nov-2016.jpg 540w, https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/636159407713930357-Scientists-assess-coral-mortality-following-the-bleaching-event-Northern-GBR-Nov-2016-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16138\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scientists assess coral mortality on Zenith Reef following the bleaching event, Northern Great Barrier Reef, November 2016. (Photo: Andreas Dietzel, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The vibrant colors that draw thousands of tourists to the Great Barrier Reef each year come from algae that live in the corals tissue. When water temperatures become too high, coral becomes stressed and expels the algae, which leave the coral a bleached white color.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Mass coral bleaching is a new phenomenon and was never observed before the 1980s as global warming ramped up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Besides their beauty, reefs shelter land from <\/span>storms,<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> and are also a habitat for myriads of species.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;Coral reefs are therefore the most biologically diverse ecosystems <\/span>of<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> the planet, and provide a number of ecosystem services that hundreds of millions of people rely on,&#8221; said Greg Torda, also of the Centre, in an e-mail to USA TODAY.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;These include provisioning (fishing, other types of harvesting, for pharmaceuticals, for example), coastal protection, aesthetic and cultural values \u2013 to name a few. If corals are lost, so are all the services they provide to humans; and so are all the species that directly or indirectly rely on them.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Tourism on the Great Barrier Reef employs 70,000 people, and generates $5 billion (Australian) in income each year, the Centre said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The good news is that much of the coral survived this bleaching event. But looking to the future, mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef will likely be an annual phenomenon within a decade, Torda said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16139\" src=\"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Australia-Great-Barrier-Reef.jpg\" alt=\"Australia Great Barrier Reef\" width=\"541\" height=\"537\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Australia-Great-Barrier-Reef.jpg 541w, https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Australia-Great-Barrier-Reef-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Australia-Great-Barrier-Reef-300x298.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Australia-Great-Barrier-Reef-180x180.jpg 180w, https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Australia-Great-Barrier-Reef-140x140.jpg 140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 541px) 100vw, 541px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">If all the coral died on the reef, \u201cit would be among the largest mass extinction events in history,\u201d said Torda.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;\">source: http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/tech\/sciencefair\/2016\/11\/28\/great-barrier-reef-australia-coral-die-off\/94554934\/<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/australias-great-barrier-reef-worst-coral-die-off-ever.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef has worst coral die-off ever Scientists confirm a mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef this year has killed more corals than ever before, with more than two thirds destroyed across large swathes of the biodiverse site. Video provided by AFP Newslook One of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[10142,10143],"class_list":["post-16136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-australias-great-barrier-reef-has-worst-coral-die-off-ever","tag-great-barrier-reef-in-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}