scholarly journals Resistance to thermal stress in corals without changes in symbiont composition

2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1731) ◽  
pp. 1100-1107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Bellantuono ◽  
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg ◽  
Mauricio Rodriguez-Lanetty

Discovering how corals can adjust their thermal sensitivity in the context of global climate change is important in understanding the long-term persistence of coral reefs. In this study, we showed that short-term preconditioning to higher temperatures, 3°C below the experimentally determined bleaching threshold, for a period of 10 days provides thermal tolerance for the symbiosis stability between the scleractinian coral, Acropora millepora and Symbiodinium . Based on genotypic analysis, our results indicate that the acclimatization of this coral species to thermal stress does not come down to simple changes in Symbiodinium and/or the bacterial communities that associate with reef-building corals. This suggests that the physiological plasticity of the host and/or symbiotic components appears to play an important role in responding to ocean warming. The further study of host and symbiont physiology, both of Symbiodinium and prokaryotes, is of paramount importance in the context of global climate change, as mechanisms for rapid holobiont acclimatization will become increasingly important to the long-standing persistence of coral reefs.

2019 ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
N.E. Terentiev

Based on the latest data, paper investigates the dynamics of global climate change and its impact on economic growth in the long-term. The notion of climate risk is considered. The main directions of climate risk management policies are analyzed aimed, first, at reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions through technological innovation and structural economic shifts; secondly, at adaptation of population, territories and economic complexes to the irreparable effects of climate change. The problem of taking into account the phenomenon of climate change in the state economic policy is put in the context of the most urgent tasks of intensification of long-term socio-economic development and parrying strategic challenges to the development of Russia.


Author(s):  
Robert A. Berner

The cycle of carbon is essential to the maintenance of life, to climate, and to the composition of the atmosphere and oceans. What is normally thought of as the “carbon cycle” is the transfer of carbon between the atmosphere, the oceans, and life. This is not the subject of interest of this book. To understand this apparently confusing statement, it is necessary to separate the carbon cycle into two cycles: the short-term cycle and the long-term cycle. The “carbon cycle,” as most people understand it, is represented in figure 1.1. Carbon dioxide is taken up via photosynthesis by green plants on the continents or phytoplankton in the ocean. On land carbon is transferred to soils by the dropping of leaves, root growth, and respiration, the death of plants, and the development of soil biota. Land herbivores eat the plants, and carnivores eat the herbivores. In the oceans the phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton that are in turn eaten by larger and larger organisms. The plants, plankton, and animals respire CO2. Upon death the plants and animals are decomposed by microorganisms with the ultimate production of CO2. Carbon dioxide is exchanged between the oceans and atmosphere, and dissolved organic matter is carried in solution by rivers from soils to the sea. This all constitutes the shortterm carbon cycle. The word “short-term” is used because the characteristic times for transferring carbon between reservoirs range from days to tens of thousands of years. Because the earth is more than four billion years old, this is short on a geological time scale. As the short-term cycle proceeds, concentrations of the two principal atmospheric gases, CO2 and CH4, can change as a result of perturbations of the cycle. Because these two are both greenhouse gases—in other words, they adsorb outgoing infrared radiation from the earth surface—changes in their concentrations can involve global warming and cooling over centuries and many millennia. Such changes have accompanied global climate change over the Quaternary period (past 2 million years), although other factors, such as variations in the receipt of solar radiation due to changes in characteristics of the earth’s orbit, have also contributed to climate change.


2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 497-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline E. Huntoon ◽  
Robert K. Ridky

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 1085-1099 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathieu Floury ◽  
Philippe Usseglio-Polatera ◽  
Martial Ferreol ◽  
Cecile Delattre ◽  
Yves Souchon

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (32) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Chini ◽  
Peter Stansby ◽  
Mike Walkden ◽  
Jim Hall ◽  
Judith Wolf ◽  
...  

Assessment of nearshore response to climatic change is an important issue for coastal management. To predict potential effects of climate change, a framework of numerical models has been implemented which enables the downscaling of global projections to an eroding coastline, based on TOMAWAC for inshore wave propagation input into SCAPE for shoreline modelling. With this framework, components of which have already been calibrated and validated, a set of consistent global climate change projections is used to estimate the future evolution of an un-engineered coastline. The response of the shoreline is sensitive to the future scenarios, underlying the need for long term large scale offshore conditions to be included in the prediction of non-stationary processes.


2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 242 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Maynard ◽  
K. R. N. Anthony ◽  
S. Afatta ◽  
L. F. Anggraini ◽  
D. Haryanti ◽  
...  

Coral reefs everywhere are under increasing pressure from a suite of stressors. Recently, threats associated with climate change have been brought closer into focus and now dominate discussions and debate relating to the coral reef crisis (Hughes et al. 2003, Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2007). Indeed, mitigating local stressors on coral reefs has been given less priority and publicity than the global need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Interestingly though, recent surveys demonstrate that most reef scientists agree that coral reefs are under greater threat from impacts associated with human population growth, coastal development, and overfishing than from global climate change (Kleypas and Eakin 2007). This is especially true for the reefs in SE Asia and the Pacific, which make up the bulk of the reefs in the world (Bryant et al. 1998). In these areas, regulations to ensure that anthropogenic activities near and on coral reefs are conducted sustainably, such as development, sanitation, fishing and even tourism; either do not exist or are rarely enforced due to a lack of resources. Here, we present one such example from Indonesia, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, a country where over 60% of the population relies in some way on marine resources.


Factors causing global degradation of coral reefs are examined briefly as a basis for predicting the likely consequences of increases in these factors. The earlier consensus was that widespread but localized damage from natural factors such as storms, and direct anthropogenic effects such as increased sedimentation, pollution and exploitation, posed the largest immediate threat to coral reefs. Now truly global factors associated with accelerating Global Climate Change are either damaging coral reefs or have the potential to inflict greater damage in the immediate future: e.g. increases in coral bleaching and mortality, and reductions in coral calcification due to changes in sea-water chemistry with increasing carbon dioxide concentrations. Rises in sea level will probably disrupt human communities and their cultures by making coral cays uninhabitable, whereas coral reefs will sustain minimal damage from the rise in sea level. The short-term (decades) prognosis is indeed grim, with major reductions almost certain in the extent and biodiversity of coral reefs, and severe disruptions to cultures and economies dependent on reef resources. The long-term (centuries to millennia) prognosis is more encouraging because coral reefs have remarkable resilience to severe disruption and will probably show this resilience in the future when climate changes either stabilize or reverse.


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