The #Corals That Survive #ClimateChange Will Be Unrecognizable

They have endured so much, and to endure this, they’ll have to adapt dramatically.

By Marina Koren
August 28, 2024

"Earth belonged to the corals first. And over hundreds of millions of years, they proved themselves remarkably good at adapting to each new version of the planet. As other groups of organisms dropped out of existence, corals endured so many catastrophes that their history reads like a biblical tale of resilience. Through #extinctions mass and minor, through #volcanic eruptions #and asteroid strikes, the corals survived.

"And for tiny marine animals, they managed to exert tremendous force on the planet’s landscape. Corals have raised whole islands into existence. They are the natural guardians of #coastlines; they sustain an estimated quarter of known #MarineLife. If the reefs ringing the #Maldives die, an entire nation could erode into the sea. Humans live in these places because corals exist.

"The Earth that humans evolved on, in other words, is a coral planet. Today, the animals provide #ecosystems that support the livelihoods of about 1 billion people. They are so fundamental to life as we know it that scientists wonder if one way humanity could discover alien life is by detecting the signature of fluorescent corals in the shallow waters of another planet. Corals are also, famously, being devastated by climate change. Even in a future where they survive in some form, their transformation could make our own experience of this planet profoundly different.

"The earliest corals emerged about 500 million years ago, roughly alongside plant life on land. But the modern version of coral reefs appeared a short 4 million years ago, around the time our human ancestors began to walk upright (give or take a few million years). When researchers try to rescue suffering corals, carefully cutting pieces away and transporting them to aquariums, they’re visiting underwater metropolises that are thousands of years old. Despite all that corals have been through, given how fast conditions on Earth are changing, life has likely never been quite as stressful for them as it is now, according to the coral experts Bertrand Martin-Garin and Lucien Montaggioni in their book, Corals and Reefs.

"Earlier this month, scientists reported that #Australia’s #GreatBarrierReef is sitting in water that, in one decade, has become hotter than at any other point in the past 400 years. #Caribbean coral colonies are still reeling from the havoc of last year’s historic #MarineHeatWave. Around the world, extraordinarily hot ocean temperatures have plunged corals into one of the worst #CoralBleaching events in recorded history—they’re expelling the #algae that live in their tissues and turning a ghostly white. Corals can survive bleaching, if conditions improve. But the longer they remain without that algae, the more likely they are to die.

"'These are strange days on planet Earth,' Derek Manzello, a coral-reef ecologist and the coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch, once told me. The planet used to give corals hundreds of thousands of years to adjust to a new reality; #HumanActivities—the burning of #FossilFuels but also #overfishing and #pollution that have brought on #GlobalWarming—have introduced a rate of change more dramatic than anything else in the geological record. “If we wanted to kill all reef-building corals on the planet, it would be hard to imagine a collection of activities quite as pointed and effective as what we’ve arrived at,' Stuart Sandin, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told me."

Read more:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/08/earth-corals-climate-change/679636/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

Archived copy:
https://archive.ph/GF6tp