Our Dying Planet

Our Dying Planet PDF Author: Peter Sale
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520949838
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Coral reefs are on track to become the first ecosystem actually eliminated from the planet. So says leading ecologist Peter F. Sale in this crash course on the state of the planet. Sale draws from his own extensive work on coral reefs, and from recent research by other ecologists, to explore the many ways we are changing the earth and to explain why it matters. Weaving into the narrative his own firsthand field experiences around the world, Sale brings ecology alive while giving a solid understanding of the science at work behind today’s pressing environmental issues. He delves into topics including overfishing, deforestation, biodiversity loss, use of fossil fuels, population growth, and climate change while discussing the real consequences of our growing ecological footprint. Most important, this passionately written book emphasizes that a gloom-and-doom scenario is not inevitable, and as Sale explores alternative paths, he considers the ways in which science can help us realize a better future.

Our Dying Planet

Our Dying Planet PDF Author: Peter Sale
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520949838
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Get Book Here

Book Description
Coral reefs are on track to become the first ecosystem actually eliminated from the planet. So says leading ecologist Peter F. Sale in this crash course on the state of the planet. Sale draws from his own extensive work on coral reefs, and from recent research by other ecologists, to explore the many ways we are changing the earth and to explain why it matters. Weaving into the narrative his own firsthand field experiences around the world, Sale brings ecology alive while giving a solid understanding of the science at work behind today’s pressing environmental issues. He delves into topics including overfishing, deforestation, biodiversity loss, use of fossil fuels, population growth, and climate change while discussing the real consequences of our growing ecological footprint. Most important, this passionately written book emphasizes that a gloom-and-doom scenario is not inevitable, and as Sale explores alternative paths, he considers the ways in which science can help us realize a better future.

Coral Reef Resilience

Coral Reef Resilience PDF Author: Loke Ming Chou
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3036504540
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Are coral reefs sufficiently resilient to withstand the changing environmental conditions of the future? Research is necessary to gain a better understanding of how reefs will respond and how resilient they are. Various approaches to characterize and analyze reef responses from the molecular to community and habitat levels are all essential. Trends could be analyzed from spatially extensive and/or long-term monitoring data and applied to novel management strategies. Reef resilience research continues to remain relevant and important to the future of coral reefs. The contributions in this volume provide a further dimension to the understanding of reef resilience.

Coral reef resilience and resistance to bleaching

Coral reef resilience and resistance to bleaching PDF Author:
Publisher: IUCN
ISBN: 2831709504
Category : Coral reef conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
Provides synthesis of current scientific knowledge on coral reef resilience and resistance to bleaching, and highlights resilience and resistance factors and some knowledge gaps. Discusses tools and strategies to enhance resilience, including the use of well-designed networks of marine protected areas and integrated coastal management.

Coral Reef Resilience to Climate Change

Coral Reef Resilience to Climate Change PDF Author: Lida T. Teneva
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Coral reefs are simultaneously the most biodiverse, arguably most valuable, and most vulnerable to climate change type of marine ecosystem. Reefs provide many ecosystem services, such as food, income, protection from storm surge and sea level rise, and yet coral reefs are at high risk of negative impacts due to climate change. In order to understand climate change vulnerability in reef ecosystems and the factors which could confer or preclude resilience, we need to examine and have a thorough grasp of reef environmental variability on different time scales when it comes to temperature and carbon chemistry specifically, and particularly the biological and physical drivers of such variability. This dissertation addresses both aspects of climate change threats to coral reefs: rise in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) as well as the dynamics of declining pH associated with changes to the carbon system with continued ocean acidification (OA). The former is examined through a methodological paper on improved projections of coral bleaching for reef globally based on global climate models, and the latter is addressed via three thorough field studies of carbon budgets and reef metabolism on three different reefs spanning the Western Pacific, Central Equatorial Pacific, and a high-latitude Great Barrier Reef. This dissertation offers valuable information towards the following advances: 1) progress in instrumentation which can accurately and autonomously produce high-resolution datasets of environmental variability in different reef habitat types; 2) refinement of methodologies for computing reef metabolism as well as reef sensitivity to temperature and pH stress; and 3) an improved mechanistic understanding of physical, biological, and ecological drivers of coastal carbon dynamics and their implications for conditioning reefs for the future. Specifically, this dissertation demonstrates our ability to improve future projections for thermal stress on reefs and threats from bleaching significantly depend on using global climate model output of high spatial resolution and applying a refined methodology aimed at incorporating internal temperature variability as part of the exposure to thermal stress metric. The spatial patterns in bleaching probabilities presented here and in other subsequent studies on the topic may provide insights into conservation priorities of particularly thermally resilient reef locations. In addition, perhaps the most important lesson learned from field measurements and interdisciplinary studies on reef carbon budgets presented in this dissertation is that there is rarely a one-size-fits-all type of approach that could yield robust and accurate reef metabolism estimates. Reef systems are more complex than we have previously considered, and their conditioning to environmental variability is actually based on complex feedbacks between ecological community composition and various physiological processes, which leave their mark on the overlying ambient seawater. Environmental variability and thus conditioning and the potential to resist or be resilient to future ocean acidification are all characteristics strongly modulated by the interactions between reef metabolism and hydrodynamic regimes and highlight the need to continued field monitoring aimed at high-resolution characterization of both carbon chemistry and hydrodynamics. This dissertation contributes a detailed understanding of the challenges involved in investigating reef biogeochemistry and water circulation in reef habitats in relation to reef net community calcification (NCC) and net community production (NCP) (collectively referred to as reef metabolism).

Coral Reef Resilience to Climate Change in the Florida Reef Tract

Coral Reef Resilience to Climate Change in the Florida Reef Tract PDF Author: Jeffrey Maynard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Coral reef conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 23

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Book Description
"Climate change and a range of human activities threaten the natural resilience of coral reef ecosystems. Reef resilience is the ability to resist and recover from disturbances while retaining essentially the same function and structure. Managers can support the natural resilience of reefs by reducing their sensitivity to climate-related disturbances, such as coral bleaching, by reducing stress on reefs caused by human activities. The challenge for natural resource managers in Florida, as with everywhere else reefs occur, lies in deciding which actions to implement and where, to best support resilience. Understanding spatial variation in resilience to climate change in the Florida Reef Tract was the goal of this project, with the aim being to produce information that can inform management decisions. This project is a collaboration co-funded by NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and The Nature Conservancy’s Florida office. This study addresses this priority from Florida’s Climate Change Action Plan – Determine and map areas of high and low resilience to climate change in order to prioritize management efforts"--Executive Summary.

A Reef Manager's Guide to Coral Bleaching

A Reef Manager's Guide to Coral Bleaching PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Coral reef conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Explores emerging monitoring strategies and presents adaptive management techniques to anticipate and mitigate coral bleaching, with emphasis upon identification and promotion of resilience in coral reef ecosystems. Includes coverage of strategic use of marine protected areas.

Coral Reefs and Climate Change

Coral Reefs and Climate Change PDF Author: Jonathan Turnbull Phinney
Publisher: American Geophysical Union
ISBN: 0875903592
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Coastal and Estuarine Studies, Volume 61. The effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and related climate change on shallow coral reefs are gaining considerable attention for scientific and economic reasons worldwide. Although increased scientific research has improved our understanding of the response of coral reefs to climate change, we still lack key information that can help guide reef management. Research and monitoring of coral reef ecosystems over the past few decades have documented two major threats related to increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2: (1) increased sea surface temperatures and (2) increased seawater acidity (lower pH). Higher atmospheric CO2 levels have resulted in rising sea surface temperatures and proven to be an acute threat to corals and other reef-dwelling organisms. Short periods (days) of elevated sea surface temperatures by as little as 1–2°C above the normal maximum temperature has led to more frequent and more widespread episodes of coral bleaching-the expulsion of symbiotic algae. A more chronic consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 is the lowering of pH of surface waters, which affects the rate at which corals and other reef organisms secrete and build their calcium carbonate skeletons. Average pH of the surface ocean has already decreased by an estimated 0.1 unit since preindustrial times, and will continue to decline in concert with rising atmospheric CO2. These climate-related Stressors combined with other direct anthropogenic assaults, such as overfishing and pollution, weaken reef organisms and increase their susceptibility to disease.

Scientific Framework for Evaluating Coral Reef Resilience to Climate Change

Scientific Framework for Evaluating Coral Reef Resilience to Climate Change PDF Author: Hannah Catherine Barkley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Coral reef conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description


A Research Review of Interventions to Increase the Persistence and Resilience of Coral Reefs

A Research Review of Interventions to Increase the Persistence and Resilience of Coral Reefs PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030948538X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Coral reef declines have been recorded for all major tropical ocean basins since the 1980s, averaging approximately 30-50% reductions in reef cover globally. These losses are a result of numerous problems, including habitat destruction, pollution, overfishing, disease, and climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions and the associated increases in ocean temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have been implicated in increased reports of coral bleaching, disease outbreaks, and ocean acidification (OA). For the hundreds of millions of people who depend on reefs for food or livelihoods, the thousands of communities that depend on reefs for wave protection, the people whose cultural practices are tied to reef resources, and the many economies that depend on reefs for fisheries or tourism, the health and maintenance of this major global ecosystem is crucial. A growing body of research on coral physiology, ecology, molecular biology, and responses to stress has revealed potential tools to increase coral resilience. Some of this knowledge is poised to provide practical interventions in the short-term, whereas other discoveries are poised to facilitate research that may later open the doors to additional interventions. A Research Review of Interventions to Increase the Persistence and Resilience of Coral Reefs reviews the state of science on genetic, ecological, and environmental interventions meant to enhance the persistence and resilience of coral reefs. The complex nature of corals and their associated microbiome lends itself to a wide range of possible approaches. This first report provides a summary of currently available information on the range of interventions present in the scientific literature and provides a basis for the forthcoming final report.

Coral reefs, climate change and resilience : an agenda for action from the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain

Coral reefs, climate change and resilience : an agenda for action from the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain PDF Author:
Publisher: IUCN
ISBN: 2831711584
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description