How do Gulf corals beat the heat?
If the sea off Australia was that warm, the entire Great Barrier
Reef would die. So how do the corals and reef fish in Abu Dhabi's coastal
waters survive? "Accurate predictions of the fate of coral reefs require a
profound knowledge of the adaptation capacity of the main reef builders,"
said Prof Wiedenmann.
The coral live in symbiosis with zooxanthellae. This is a type of
algae that lives within the coral tissue. Algae photosynthesis produces sugar
that provides up to 90 per cent of the coral energy, and as a return the coral
provide various things such as shelter, nutrients, nitrogen and carbon dioxide
for the algae. The coral can live for a week depending on their fat reserves.
The weather in 2010 exceeded 37C which caused the loss of many corals on large number of reefs in the
southern basin of the Gulf.
Coral’s skeleton structure is made of the
same substance as human bones which is calcium carbonate. Fragmentation and
larval production are two ways for the coral to reproduce. Larvae have a
limited time to choose their home. The larval production is not a main problem
when compared to the recovery rates.
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