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NOV 21, 2014 Florida State University’s Don Leviton (L) STRI’s Nancy Knowlton recently authored a study on the long-term effects of coral bleaching in Marine Ecology Progress Series. Don Levitan de la Universidad Estatal de la Florida (izq.) y Nancy Knowlton del Smithsonian en Panamá fueron co-autores de un reciente estudio sobre los efectos a largo plazo del blanqueamiento de los corales en la publicación Marine Ecology Progress Series.
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Photo by Christian Ziegler
STUDY: ENVIRONMENTAL BLEACHING IMPAIRS LONG-TERM CORAL REPRODUCTION A new study by a Florida State University biologist shows that bleaching events brought on by rising sea temperatures are having a detrimental long-term impact on coral. Professor Don Levitan, chair of the Department of Biological Science who has been conducting research at STRI since 1996, writes in the latest issue of Marine Ecology Progress Series that bleaching — a process where high water temperatures or UV light stresses the coral to the point where it loses its symbiotic algal partner that provides the coral with color — is also affecting the long-term fertility of the coral. Levitan’s graduate student William Boudreau, as well as Javier Jara from STRI, and Nancy Knowlton from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, were co-authors on the paper.
“Even corals that didn’t bleach aren’t reproducing at the levels they should,” Levitan said. Most corals reproduce by releasing sperm and eggs into the ocean during brief annual spawning events. The chance of sperm finding and fertilizing an egg depends on corals spawning in close proximity and in synchrony with each other. In a study of the corals that build the major framework of Caribbean coral reefs, Levitan’s team found that the species living in shallower water experienced near total reproductive failure, while the species living in deeper water was about half as likely to spawn. “The remarkable finding from this study was that the reduction in spawning persisted for three additional years, long after the corals had regained their symbiotic partners and regained their normal appearance,” Levitan said.
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