Working on clues in the fossil coral record from the last major episode of global warming, the period between the last two ice ages about 125,000 years ago, the researchers found evidence of a sharp decline in coral diversity near the equator.

“When the climate warmed rapidly during the Last Interglacial, coral species diversity was much lower close to the Equator than at higher latitudes,” says Professor John Pandolfi of CoECRS and The University of Queensland.

“It appears that during this period the number of coral species present in equatorial oceans was only 50-60% of the diversity found further away from the equator, and diversity was greatest in the northern hemisphere.”

Professor Pandolfi and his German colleagues found that, when sea surface temperatures warmed by about 0.7 of a degree Celsius during the interglacial warm period, it was enough to drive many species of coral out of equatorial waters up to 10 degrees of latitude on either side of the equator.

“Our results suggest that the poleward range expansions of reef corals occurring with intensified global warming today may soon be followed by equatorial range retractions,” the team says in their latest paper, published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science.

“Earlier work revealed that the corals had marched as far south as Margaret River in Western Australia during the interglacial – and we wanted to establish what was happening at the ‘hot end’ of the corals’ range,” Prof. Pandolfi explains.

“The answer is, increased temperatures resulted in the extirpation of many coral species in equatorial waters, leading to much poorer reef systems.”

What concerns the scientists is that the planet has already warmed by 0.7 of a degree since the start of the industrial age – a similar amount to the last interglacial – and while the corals have not yet abandoned equatorial waters, modern equatorial diversity is lower compared to adjacent latitudes north and south.

“If this is the case, it has serious implications for the nations of the Coral Triangle, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, where tens of millions of people rely upon the oceans for their livelihoods and food.

“The picture that is forming is one of corals moving back and forth, towards the poles during warm periods, and retracting towards the equator in cooler times, in search of the most favourable water conditions.

“It is going to be important to factor this kind of dynamism into how we manage them in the hot times which we now know lie ahead.”

Prof. Pandolfi has devoted many years to studying major fossilised coral reef deposits around the world most of which are now on dry land – but which grew in the ocean during warmer periods when sea levels were much higher than today.

“Many of these reefs lie 4-6 metres above today’s high tide mark, and are a clear indicator of how much the oceans rose during the last interglacial.

“The thought that just 0.7 of a degree of sea surface warming back then caused a 4-6 metre ocean rise is distinctly disturbing – because that is how much the Earth has already heated in the current warming episode, and the predictions are for a further one degree or more by 2050.

“Corals, we know, have responded quite readily to rising sea levels in the absence of human stressors. The question will be: can humans respond equally well?”

The paper “Equatorial decline of reef corals during the last Pleistocene interglacial” by Wolfgang Kiessling, Carl Simpson, Brian Beck, Heike Mewis and John M. Pandolfi appears in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science (PNAS).

More information:
Professor John Pandolfi, CoECRS and UQ, +61 (0)7 3365 3050 or +61 (0)400 982 301
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 (0)7 4781 4222
Jan King, UQ Communications Manager, +61 (0)7 3365 1120

http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

Cores taken through the coral reef at Pelorus Island confirm a healthy community of branching Acropora corals flourished for centuries before European settlement of the area, despite frequent floods and cyclone events. Then, between 1920 and 1955, the branching Acropora failed to recover.

Scientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at the University of Queensland say the rapid collapse of the coral community is potential evidence of the link between man-made changes in water quality and the loss of corals on the Great Barrier Reef.

It adds weight to evidence that human activity is implicated in the recent loss of up to half of the corals on the Great Barrier Reef, says Professor John Pandolfi of CoECRS and UQ.

The destruction of branching corals coincided with wide-spread land clearing for grazing and agriculture which took place in the nearby Burdekin River catchment in the late 19^th Century, causing an increase in the amount of mud and nutrients into the GBR lagoon, says the lead author of a new study on the collapse, Dr George Roff, of CoECRS and UQ.

“Corals have always died from natural events such as floods and cyclones, but historically have shown rapid recovery following disturbance. Our results suggest that the chronic influence of European settlement on the Queensland coastline may have impacted on the corals ability to bounce back from these natural disturbances” he says.

The team took cores from dead coral beds on the western side of Pelorus Island and then analysed their coral species composition and their age, using high-precision uranium dating methods pioneered by a team lead by one of the study’s co-authors, Jian-xin Zhao at the University of Queensland’s Radio Isotope Facility. They then aligned this with records of cyclones, floods and sea surface temperatures over the same period.

“Our results imply … a previously undetected historical collapse in coral communities coinciding with increased sediment and nutrient loading following European settlement of the Queensland coastline,” the researchers report in their paper.

“Significantly, this collapse occurred before the onset of the large-scale coral bleaching episodes seen in recent decades, and also before detailed surveys of GBR coral began in the 1980s.

“And, even more significantly, we found no similar collapse occurring at any time in the previous 1700 years covered by our cores. Throughout this period the branching corals continued to flourish – despite all the cyclones and natural impacts they endured.”

At two sites the Acropora corals vanished completely while at a third there was a marked shift in coral species from Acropora to Pavona, which the researchers say parallels similar observations of human impacts in the Caribbean.

“On a global scale, our results are consistent with a recent report from the Caribbean region, where land use changes prior to 1960 were implicated in a significant decline in Acropora corals in near-shore reefs.”

The research has raised another realistic possibility – that current coral surveys may significantly underestimate the possibility of major ‘unseen’ shifts such as these having taken place in the period before effective coral records began, the researchers suggest. In other words, the GBR may be more degraded than it appears to today’s eyes.

“We know that at some sites in the region, branching Acropora was the dominant reef builder until recent times. This raises the question of why some inshore reefs appear to be resilient, while others failed to recover from disturbance” says Dr Roff.

“The research underlines that there is a very strong link between what we do on land – and what will happen to the Great Barrier Reef in future. It encourages us to take greater and more rapid steps to control runoff and other impacts on land,” says Prof. Pandolfi.

Their paper “Palaeoecological evidence of a historical collapse of corals at Pelorus Island, inshore Great Barrier Reef, following European settlement” by George Roff, Tara R. Clark, Claire Reymond, Jian-xin Zhao, Yuexing Feng, Laurence J. McCook, Terence J. Done and John M. Pandolfi appears in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

More information:
Professor John Pandolfi, CoECRS and UQ, +61 (0)7 3365 3050 or +61 400 982 301
George Roff, CoECRS and UQ, +61 (0) 3040 0960 or +61 432 931 051
Dr Laurence McCook, CoECRS and GBRMPA, 0408 804 765
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 417 741 638
Jan King, UQ Communications Manager, +61 (0)7 3365 1120

http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

The researchers from Australia, the US, Canada, German

y, Panama, Norway and the UK have compared events which drove massive extinctions of sea life in the past with what is observed to be taking place in the seas and oceans globally today.

Three of the five largest extinctions of the past 500 million years were associated with global warming and acidification of the oceans – trends which also apply today, the scientists say in a new article in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Other extinctions were driven by loss of oxygen from seawaters, pollution, habitat loss and pressure from human hunting and fishing – or a combination of these factors.

“Currently, the Earth is again in a period of increased extinctions and extinction risks, this time mainly caused by human factors,” the scientists stated. While the data is harder to collect at sea than on land, the evidence points strongly to similar pressures now being felt by sea life as for land animals and plants.

The researchers conducted an extensive search of the historical and fossil records to establish the main causes of previous marine extinctions – and the risk of their recurring today.

“We wanted to understand what had driven past extinctions of sea life and see how much of those conditions prevailed today,” says co-author Professor John Pandolfi, of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland, an authority on the fate of coral reefs in previous mass extinction events.

“It is very useful to look back in time – because if you forget your history, you’re liable to repeat it.”

Marine extinction events vary greatly. In the ‘Great Death’ of the Permian 250 million years ago, for example, an estimated 95 per cent of marine species died out due to a combination of warming, acidification, loss of oxygen and habitat. Scientists have traced the tragedy in the chemistry of ocean sediments laid down at the time, and abrupt loss of many sea animals from the fossil record.

“We are seeing the signature of all those drivers today – plus the added drivers of human overexploitation and pollution from chemicals, plastics and nutrients,” Prof. Pandolfi says.

“The fossil record tells us that sea life is very resilient – that it recovers after one of these huge setbacks. But also that it can take millions of years to do so.”

The researchers wrote the paper out of their concern that the oceans appear to be on the brink of another major extinction event.

“There may be still time to act,” Prof. Pandolfi says. “If we understand what drives ocean extinction, we can also understand what we need to do to prevent or minimise it.

“We need to understand that the oceans aren’t just a big dumping ground for human waste, contaminants and CO2 – a place we can afford to ignore or overexploit. They are closely linked to our own survival, wellbeing and prosperity as well as that of life on Earth in general.

“Even though we cannot easily see what is going on underwater, we need to recognise that the influence of 7 billion humans is now so great it governs the fate of life in the oceans. And we need to start taking responsibility for that.”

He adds “The situation is not hopeless. If fact we have seen clear evidence both from the past and the present that sea life can bounce back, given a chance to do so.

“For example, in Australia we have clear evidence of that good management of coral reefs can lead to recovery of both corals and fish numbers.

“So, rather, our paper is an appeal to humanity to give the oceans a chance.

“In effect, it says we need to stop releasing the CO2 that drives these massive extinction events, curb the polluted and nutrient-rich runoff from the land that is causing ocean ‘dead zones’ manage our fisheries more sustainably and protect their habitat better.

“All these things are possible, but people need to understand why they are essential. That is the first step in taking effective action to prevent extinctions.”

Their paper Extinctions in ancient and modern seas by Paul G. Harnik, Heike K. Lotze, Sean C. Anderson, Zoe V. Finkel, Seth Finnegan, David R. Lindberg, Lee Hsiang Liow, Rowan Lockwood, Craig R. McClain, Jenny L. McGuire, Aaron O’Dea, John M. Pandolfi, Carl Simpson and Derek P. Tittensor appears in the online edition of Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE).

More information:
Professor John Pandolfi, CoECRS and UQ, +61 7 3365 3050 or (m) +61 400 982 301
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 417 741 638
Jan King, UQ Communications Manager, +61 (0)7 3365 1120

The coral scientist from the

ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland has traced the story of the world’s reefs over more than 50 million years and is deciphering delicate signals from the past to reveal what doomed them in previous extinctions – and how this compares with today.

This knowledge is priceless in understanding what we humans have to do to prevent such a tragedy recurring, he says.

“I’m an optimist – you have to be, to devote your life to this field,” he said.

Despite scientific predictions that the current trajectory of human development will eliminate 90 per cent of the world’s coral reefs by the end of the century, Professor Pandolfi considers it is still within our power to save 60 or 70 per cent, provided we act quickly to limit the things that drive corals to ruin.

“Corals themselves are remarkably resilient,” he said.

“They have stood up to several episodes of global warming and high CO2 in the past – and bounced back, even from mass extinction events.”

But the sobering fact is that it can take coral reefs up to 10 million years to re-establish after a major extinction event, he says.

“That’s a long time to wait if your industries, communities and food supplies are dependent on reefs.”

The big issue today is that most of the world’s coral reefs face a ‘double whammy’ of accelerated global change combined with local stresses from pollution, runoff and overfishing.

These local, man-made, factors were absent during previous world coral crises, he said.

“Also, while corals have withstood hot climates and high CO2 in the past, we have so far been unable to identify any period in Earth’s history when CO2 levels rose as rapidly as today.”

The good news, he says, is that experiments in Australia and round the world have shown it is possible to curb overfishing, runoff and pollution, to limit their local impact on corals.

“Our latest studies have shown corals have a great capacity to bounce back if you take these pressures off them – and this means we still have a window of opportunity to act.

“But we need to act immediately.”

Professor Pandolfi says the action required is threefold – (i) aggressively reduce CO2 emissions (ii) reduce overfishing, pollution and coral habitat destruction and (iii) implement sound management to improve overall reef health.

On Thursday, July 12, Prof Pandolfi will present his team’s latest research to the International Coral Reef Symposium.

This work aims to disentangle the impact of local effects (like runoff and rainfall) from global effects (like warming and ocean acidification) on the coral’s ability to calcify (or grow) by studying rates of calcification in the columnar coral Goniopora over the past 1000 years.

“We’ve observed widely different effects in some corals – for example when calcification of Porites corals declined by 14 per cent on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, it increased by 24 per cent on Western Australian reefs.

“This has got to be down to local effects, as both corals are experiencing some of the same global impacts.”

Managing corals so they thrive, as in the case of WA, may hold the secret of saving the world’s coral reefs in a time that might otherwise bring near-extinction.

Professor Pandolfi will be available to media at a press conference today at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Cairns, Australia, at 9.30 AM AEST, along with other leading researchers to comment on the impact of climate change and other stressors on the world’s reefs.

More information:
Professor John Pandolfi, CoECRS and UQ, +61 400 982 301
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 417 741 638
Julian Cribb, CoECRS media, +61 418 639 245
Jan King, UQ Communications Manager, +61 (0)7 3365 1120Rich Text AreaToolbarBold (Ctrl + B)Italic (Ctrl + I)Strikethrough (Alt + Shift + D)UnderlineUnordered list (Alt + Shift + U)▼
Ordered list (Alt + Shift + O)▼
OutdentIndentAlign Left (Alt + Shift + L)Align Center (Alt + Shift + C)Align Right (Alt + Shift + R)Insert/edit link (Alt + Shift + A)Unlink (Alt + Shift + S)Insert/edit imageEdit CSS StyleInsert More Tag (Alt + Shift + T)Insert Page break (Alt + Shift + P)Toggle spellchecker (Alt + Shift + N)▼
FindToggle fullscreen mode (Alt + Shift + G)Show/Hide Kitchen Sink (Alt + Shift + Z)Proofread Writing
Font sizeFont size▼
FormatFormat▼
Paste as Plain TextPaste from WordRemove formattingInsert custom characterPrintSelect text color▼
Select background color▼
EmotionsSuperscriptSubscriptInsert / edit embedded mediaUndo (Ctrl + Z)Redo (Ctrl + Y)Insert/Edit AttributesHelp (Alt + Shift + H)

John Pandolfi keeps his optimism alive despite the grim scientific evidence he confronts daily that the world’s coral reefs are in a lot of trouble – along with 81 nations and 500 million people who depend on them.
The coral scientist from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland has traced the story of the world’s reefs over more than 50 million years and is deciphering delicate signals from the past to reveal what doomed them in previous extinctions – and how this compares with today.
This knowledge is priceless in understanding what we humans have to do to prevent such a tragedy recurring, he says.
“I’m an optimist – you have to be, to devote your life to this field,” he said.
Despite scientific predictions that the current trajectory of human development will eliminate 90 per cent of the world’s coral reefs by the end of the century, Professor Pandolfi considers it is still within our power to save 60 or 70 per cent, provided we act quickly to limit the things that drive corals to ruin.
“Corals themselves are remarkably resilient,” he said.
“They have stood up to several episodes of global warming and high CO2 in the past – and bounced back, even from mass extinction events.”
But the sobering fact is that it can take coral reefs up to 10 million years to re-establish after a major extinction event, he says.
“That’s a long time to wait if your industries, communities and food supplies are dependent on reefs.”
The big issue today is that most of the world’s coral reefs face a ‘double whammy’ of accelerated global change combined with local stresses from pollution, runoff and overfishing.
These local, man-made, factors were absent during previous world coral crises, he said.
“Also, while corals have withstood hot climates and high CO2 in the past, we have so far been unable to identify any period in Earth’s history when CO2 levels rose as rapidly as today.”
The good news, he says, is that experiments in Australia and round the world have shown it is possible to curb overfishing, runoff and pollution, to limit their local impact on corals.
“Our latest studies have shown corals have a great capacity to bounce back if you take these pressures off them – and this means we still have a window of opportunity to act.
“But we need to act immediately.”
Professor Pandolfi says the action required is threefold – (i) aggressively reduce CO2 emissions (ii) reduce overfishing, pollution and coral habitat destruction and (iii) implement sound management to improve overall reef health.
On Thursday, July 12, Prof Pandolfi will present his team’s latest research to the International Coral Reef Symposium.
This work aims to disentangle the impact of local effects (like runoff and rainfall) from global effects (like warming and ocean acidification) on the coral’s ability to calcify (or grow) by studying rates of calcification in the columnar coral Goniopora over the past 1000 years.
“We’ve observed widely different effects in some corals – for example when calcification of Porites corals declined by 14 per cent on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, it increased by 24 per cent on Western Australian reefs.
“This has got to be down to local effects, as both corals are experiencing some of the same global impacts.”
Managing corals so they thrive, as in the case of WA, may hold the secret of saving the world’s coral reefs in a time that might otherwise bring near-extinction.
Professor Pandolfi will be available to media at a press conference today at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Cairns, Australia, at 9.30 AM AEST, along with other leading researchers to comment on the impact of climate change and other stressors on the world’s reefs.
More information:
Professor John Pandolfi, CoECRS and UQ, +61 400 982 301
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 417 741 638
Julian Cribb, CoECRS media, +61 418 639 245
Jan King, UQ Communications Manager, +61 (0)7 3365 1120
Path:

Published today in the

journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, the paper is authored by researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, The University of Queensland, CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF Queensland).

“The genetic makeup of white sharks west of Bass Strait was different from those on the eastern seaboard of Australia – despite the lack of any physical barrier between these regions,” says Professor John Pandolfi, a Chief Investigator at CoeCRS and UQ.

“This shows that while the sharks can roam around Australia and across ocean basins, they repeatedly return to their home region to breed.”

The study examined tissue samples from 97 sharks collected around Australia since 1989 which were caught in beach safety programs, as fishery bycatch and during CSIRO field-research. Its findings are broadly consistent with satellite and acoustic tracking research led by CSIRO’s Barry Bruce.

“Our tagging and tracking showed that white sharks travel thousands of kilometres,” says Mr Bruce. “But sharks tagged and tracked off eastern Australia did not go west of Bass Strait, and sharks tagged off Western and South Australia rarely went east. When they did – they often returned, so we started to wonder whether there was more than one breeding population.

“Now we know that while white sharks across Australia can mix, the intriguing thing is that they seem to return to either east or western regions to breed.”

The study builds on results by other international research teams that have identified separate genetic populations of white sharks across ocean basins. However, this is the first time such differences have been found at the regional scale.

White shark numbers declined in the 20th century and the species is now protected in South Africa, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Malta, Namibia, throughout the Mediterranean Sea and globally under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

However, a lack of information on abundance, genetic diversity, reproductive behaviour and population structure has prevented accurate assessment of the effectiveness of white shark conservation programs, including an understanding of their population trends.

“The finding may indicate that individual populations of white sharks are more susceptible than previously thought to threats including fishing or changes in the local marine environment,” Dr Jennifer Ovenden from DAFF says.

“The key will be to develop regional rather than national management strategies, and to ensure populations are monitored in both regions.”

The paper “Population genetics of Australian white sharks reveals fine-scale spatial structure, transoceanic dispersal events and low effective population sizes” by Dean C. Blower, John M. Pandolfi, Barry D. Bruce, Maria del C. Gomez-Cabrera and Jennifer R. Ovenden was published today in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

More information:

Professor John Pandolfi, CoECRS at UQ, +61 (0)7 3365 3050 or 0400 982 301
Mr Barry Bruce, CSIRO, +61 (0)3 6232 5413
Dr Jennifer Ovenden, DAFF, +61 (0)7 3346 6514 or 0415 949 410
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 (0)7 4781 4222
Jan King, UQ Communications Manager, +61 (0)7 3365 1120

CoECRS are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.

http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

eir fieldwork on the island of Negros in the Philippines. During previous visits to Negros Dr Kase and Dr Aguiliar discovered several fossil bearing outcrops probably Late Oligocene to Late Miocene in age.

The main goal of this fieldtrip for us was to both to assist our hosts in their search for fossil mollusks and to build rapport with our Philippine counterparts in order to initiate future collaborations. Yet, while on site we were able to initiate a short reconnaissance trip of our own. Dr Willem Renema (our collaborator on the Indo-Pacific Ancient Ecosystems Project), our driver, two policemen (safety reasons) and I (Morana Mihaljević) went for a little adventure that proved to be very productive, discovering new outcrops that have well preserved foraminifera and corals whilst driving around the Kabankalan area!

Foraminifera are often used in biostratigraphy due to their high diversity, abundance and test complexity. Hence, foraminiferal assemblages are specific and can be assigned to a particular time period with an accuracy of up to 1-3 million years. They can also provide useful information about the palaeoenvironments (e.g. depth). Dr Renema is a foraminifera specialist and he is interested in understanding complex and so far undocumented stratigraphy of the region. Whereas, I was trying to collect fossil corals with well preserved taxonomic characters to expand my dataset to my analysis of coral diversity through the Neogene.

Great fossils, beautiful landscape and nice people — a very successful fieldtrip!!! Found fossils show much better preservation then fossils we encountered on our previous fieldtrips to Sarawak, Malaysia. We collected around 500kg of samples and are now impatiently waiting for them to arrive to Brisbane so we can start analyzing them.