I thought nitrogen pollution was now considered the main cause of harm to corals?
I think it's not the only one
Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
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Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
#72I thought nitrogen pollution was now considered the main cause of harm to corals?
Nitrogen pollution compounds with heat stress, it makes the coral more susceptible to heat stress: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1915395117
Nitrogen pollution and warming ocean temperatures a deadly combination
Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
#73I’ve been scuba diving for 20 years and I’ve seen the devastation first hand. Once healthy eco systems, teeming with life, just completely wiped out. It’s heartbreaking. Corals grow so slowly, this might improve things 100-200 years from now, which is not nothing, but no one should delude themselves into thinking this is a solution. The fish that depend on these reefs will not be able to wait 100 generations for us t…
It must be heartbreaking to witness that devastation firsthand
Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
#74Not sure this is a good idea. What if the disappearance of corals at higher temps is part of a natural regulation system for Earth, where if they are artificially preserved, homeostasis will be perturbed? In general I am against these ecosystem engineering type projects: because the systems are so complex, we do not understand them, and we cannot test in isolation.
There is no natural regulation system for the earth, and the earth makes no attempt at homeostasis. It has been tipped over into states almost completely inhospitable for then-existing life more than once.
Multicellular lifeforms are the machinery that microbes build to improve homeostasis.
Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you willing to wait a few thousand years for a new coral to appear and spread? Maybe tens of thousands of years? Evolution does tend to fill open niches, but not all that instantly.
Yes I am. That's how it happens and how it should happen. Coral systems live, spread, and die. That's what they do. These processes happen over thousands of years.
Then the consequence will be vastly reduced fish populations for thousands of years, which may affect human populations.
Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
#76I’ve been scuba diving for 20 years and I’ve seen the devastation first hand. Once healthy eco systems, teeming with life, just completely wiped out. It’s heartbreaking. Corals grow so slowly, this might improve things 100-200 years from now, which is not nothing, but no one should delude themselves into thinking this is a solution. The fish that depend on these reefs will not be able to wait 100 generations for us t…
Have you stopped scuba diving? Aren't you concerned that your scuba diving contributes to the destruction?
Why would it? I’m a scuba diver and I don’t pour hot water on corals.
My primary function for diving is to protect the kelp forest where I usually dive by removing sea urchins, whose population has exploded, killing the kelp. This is done in conjunction with the department of fish and wildlife.
Any scuba diver knows never to touch the coral, the ground, or anything like that. Fairly simple
Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
#77Perhaps a dumb question, but wouldn't we expect the rise in ocean temperatures to be cause nature to be doing this selective breeding right now?
The pace of climate change is far faster than natural evolutionary processes can keep up with.
Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you stopped scuba diving? Aren't you concerned that your scuba diving contributes to the destruction?
Why would it? I’m a scuba diver and I don’t pour hot water on corals. My primary function for diving is to protect the kelp forest where I usually dive by removing sea urchins, whose population has exploded, killing the kelp. This is done in conjunction with the department of fish and wildlife. Any scuba diver knows never to touch the coral, the ground, or anything like that. Fairly simple
In the Florida Keys, shooting invasive Lionfish is also a way that divers can contribute to reef health.
Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
#79Perhaps a dumb question, but wouldn't we expect the rise in ocean temperatures to be cause nature to be doing this selective breeding right now?
Probably not quickly enough. Ecosystems can adapt if given enough time, but the recent rise in ocean temperatures has happened very quickly by evolutionary standards. There was a good episode of PBS Weathered on this recently if you want an idea of how quickly this has happened: https://youtu.be/YEH9nX5sudk?si=iCivRPwK8AI4sjKU
Thanks for sharing
Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably not quickly enough. Ecosystems can adapt if given enough time, but the recent rise in ocean temperatures has happened very quickly by evolutionary standards. There was a good episode of PBS Weathered on this recently if you want an idea of how quickly this has happened: https://youtu.be/YEH9nX5sudk?si=iCivRPwK8AI4sjKU
I kinda agree with the GP that this seems weird. Yes, ocean temps are rising very quickly, but this experiment only took 5 years, and was presumably a only a tiny fraction of how many wild coral there are. Ocean warming has taken place over several decades, and with millions of times as large of a natural population. It just seems weird that, if this kinda of adaptation is possible (and they showed it is), it wouldn'…
Decades isn't even a blink of the eye in evolutionary timescales. Coral don't just end up breeding more temperature resilient offspring, a bunch has to die first. The ones that don't die may carry on, but that might be 2% of the population. So sure, they might evolve and carry on but 98% might die at the same time.