Coral_Reefs

Coral Reefs Coral bleaching is the whitening of coral colonies due to the loss of symbiotic zooxanthellae from the tissues of polyps (Guilcher 1988). This loss exposes the white calcium carbonate skeletons of the coral, yet coral naturally lose about 0.1% of their zooxanthellae during regulation and replacement processes. However, adverse changes, such as increased temperatures, disease, excess shade, pollution, salinity changes, increased levels of ultraviolet radiation, and sedimentation, can cause an increase in the number of zooxathellae lost. Although the exact mechanism by which corals bleach is unknown, there are a number of hypotheses that attempt to answer the question. It is thought that there is an imbalance between the coral and algae plants that live inside the coral tissue. Thus the coral reacts expelling the algae and eventually lose its color, appearing “bleached”. Coral reefs are extremely sensitive, slight changes in the reef environment may have detrimental effects on the health of the coral polyps. There are numerous changes, but they generally fall into two categories: natural disturbances and anthropogenic disturbances (Guilcher 1988). Of these two categories anthropogenic disturbances are avoidable and are linked to the vast majority of decreases in the coral coral, reefs, corals, water, very, bleaching, reef, large, vol, pg, ocean, issue, years, island, yet, temperatures, small, rise, pollution, oil, littler, diseases, bonaire, being, able, two, trash, thousands, species, problem, over, order, one, off, new