Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system, is under attack from climate change as the seas become more acidic. And the key to its survival might lie in a Japanese reef system which thrives in similar hostile conditions
Capt. Cook’s barrier
British explorer James Cook sighted the eastern coast of Australia on this day in 1770, the first European to do so. On June 11, his ship HMS Endeavour ran aground after she struck a coral reef. Capt. Cook had accidentally encountered the southern part of the 2,300 km long Great Barrier Reef, now worth $3.7 bn annually to the Oz economy
What are corals?
Corals are made of colonies of polyps—a relative of jellyfish. The polyps are linked through their calcium skeletons, creating colonies & reefs. The translucent polyps receive their colour from algae that live inside them
Polyp–algae ties
The algae use nitrogen, phosphorous and other metabolic waste from the polyps to generate energy from the sun via photosynthesis. In turn, the polyps receive oxygen and organic products of photosynthesis. The polyp–algae symbiotic relationship is now under threat from climate change
Bleached by climate change
As the seas heat up due to CO2 buildup, the corals expel the algae—called bleaching. A large part of the Great Barrier Reef got bleached in 2016. And in 2017, it occurred again, the first time in successive years, giving the reef no recovery time. The key to saving the Oz wonder might lie in corals near Japan. Underwater volcanoes near Shikine island emit a lot of CO2. But the corals seem to thrive in the hostile environs. So studying them could help, AFP quoted researchers as saying