| Submit your comments on this article |
| Science & Technology |
| Evolution in action: Some reefs adapting to warmer water |
| 2009-05-22 |
| Experts say that more than half of the world's coral reefs could disappear in the next 50 years, in large part because of higher ocean temperatures caused by climate change. But now Stanford University scientists have found evidence that some coral reefs are adapting and may actually survive global warming. "Corals are certainly threatened by environmental change, but this research has really sparked the notion that corals may be tougher than we thought," said Stephen Palumbi, a professor of biology and a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. Palumbi and his Stanford colleagues began studying the resiliency of coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean in 2006 with the support of a Woods Institute Environmental Venture Project grant. The project has expanded and is now being funded by Conservation International and the Bio-X program at Stanford. "The most exciting thing was discovering live, healthy corals on reefs already as hot as the ocean is likely to get 100 years from now," said Palumbi, director of Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station. "How do they do that?" more details at link |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #4 "Either the seals are adapting to warmer water or the water is getting colder. They haven't been Fixed that for ya', DB. Could be either, but I'm leaning to the colder water theory. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-05-22 20:36 |
| #3 I watched a program on The History Channel a coupla weeks ago and the researches have found an increase of antarctic seals north of the equator. Some as far as the Canary Islands. Either the seals are adapting to warmer water or the water is getting colder. They haven't been able to determine that yet. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2009-05-22 19:29 |
| #2 Because of the use of underwater cable, an interesting discovery was made that corals are attracted to very slight electrical currents, and will grow at a much faster rate in their presence. So an experiment was tried in a sandy offshore area along the African coast. A grid of cable was laid on the sand, with its two ends rising up to the beach, where a small current was supplied. It was hoped that in just a decade, there would be so much growth on the grid that a new reef would form. After the concept was explained to them, the local residents were very supportive, as even they knew that offshore sand areas have few native fish, compared to a reef, which is loaded with them. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-05-22 10:00 |
| #1 See also REDDIT > NEW STUDY: GLOBAL TEMPERATURES COULD RISE BY NINE DEGREES BY 2100 [Perts originally believed broad 2-11 degree range]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-05-22 00:04 |