Ningaloo Corals Are Ill-Equipped to Handle Future Climate Change!

Despite previous research predicting coral species would move south to cooler waters to protect themselves, the new study published in Molecular Ecology has found this may not be true on the West Coast of Australia.

The new study, which investigated coral population connectivity and adaptive capacity has found many corals growing in different reef systems in north Western Australia are genetically isolated from each other.

The findings were based on the genetic data of a reef-building coral which is named “Acropora digitizer” from 5 different types of reef systems. This study determined and saw what would happen to these corals in multiple climate scenarios in the future.

Lead researcher Ph.D. student Arne Adam, from the Curtin School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said climate change had caused widespread loss of species biodiversity and ecosystem productivity across the globe, particularly on tropical coral reefs. He said the results suggest corals from northern reefs in WA are isolated from each other, meaning that corals may not be able to move to more southern reef regions.

I am wondering what would happen to these corals and I am sure that everybody else reading this article is thinking too!

Please do stop global warming to make our beloved earth a better place to live!!

Author: Sri Nihal Tammana

Source: Curtin University