hawaii coral
Coral reefs are facing a particularly hard time at the moment. There is real concern that within the next 40 years we could be seeing the collapse of not just a species but an entire global ecosystem which will be the first during the current era. Stress on coral reefs around the world include warming sea temperatures, acidification of waters, local pollution issues and seabed trawling methods. The initial symptom of coral stress is bleaching and then eventually death.
Coral reefs play an immensely important role in local and global environments. They are:
- the fish nurseries which supply fishing grounds,
- provide a natural barrier to erosion of land,
- home to organisms such as sponges that can offer cures to diseases
- support local tourism through activities such as diving
Any significant loss of reefs could bring large – and expensive – consequences for the planet. In order to help prevent the permanent loss of species and coral diversity a team in Hawaii are in the process of freezing coral cells for the possible need to reintroduce species at a later date. Frozen cells can be revived and reintroduced at any time in the future and provides a bank of genes that will still be around in hundreds of years – long after the loss of wild species if we are unable to deal with the threats to wild populations.
The project is being managed by scientists from Smithsonian Institution and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and is aimed at conserving species found around the Hawaiian Islands. The gene bank is based at a research station on Coconut Island. While many of the threats to Hawaii’s reefs are of a global nature such as climate change there are also a number of local issues that need to be addressed to help the reefs to survive. Poor agricultural practices mean polluting run off impacts of the coral and dynamite fishing destroys established populations. Reefs in Hawaii have also been under attack from an invasive seaweed that smoothers the coral.
“This work highlights the importance of basic science and discovery for developing creative solutions to pressing conservation problems,” said Steve Monfort, director of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. “We are confident that this effort will one day help to restore these vital marine ecosystems.”
This new project follows on from the international meeting on climate change at Copenhagen last October when scientists and researchers came to the conclusion that the best short term strategy for saving coral species was by the formation of gene banks to allow for later re-establishment of coral reefs. At the meeting researchers deemed that trying to reverse the effects of climate change would require long term work and effort.
”Well it’s the last ditch effort to save biodiversity from the reefs which are extremely diverse systems,” said Simon Harding from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) to the BBC at the meeting following the proposals to introduce frozen gene banks.
“It would take other work to try and reconstruct the reef so that you can start the process of building up a reef again,” he said. “That is something that needs to be looked at in detail, but we can definitely store the species and save them in that way.”
It is though that globally about 500 million people depend on coral reefs for their livelihoods, food or protection from the sea. This despite the fact that coral reefs only make up less than 0.25% of the ocean floor. While the diversity of coral species in and around Hawaii is not as great as in other parts of the world, Hawaii does have a high proportion of endemic species which means that freezing them could be the only option from conserving the species for the future. It’s though that there’s about 40 species of coral found in the waters around Hawaii. The reef community of Hawaii is particularly unique in the world because they are relatively young reefs and many are small and close to land.
photo credit: love?janine
