The Great Barrier Reef Is Dying Due to Global Warming, but All Hope Is Not Lost
The damage in a large part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef caused by an underwater heat wave may be hard to repair, but it could still survive due to evolution.
A new study that was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday revealed that scientists believe that almost one-third of the corals living the reef were killed when the temperatures of the ocean increased in 2016 due to global warming.
The study also revealed that the damage to the reef also resulted in the alteration of the mix of its coral species.
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Terry P. Hughes, the director of a government-funded center for coral reef studies at Queensland's James Cook University and lead author of the new study called the "Global Warming Transforms Coral Reef Assemblages" said that the changes in the Great Barrier Reef are happening faster than anyone can think of.
"One thing we can be sure about is the reef isn't going to look the same again," Professor Hughes also stated.
According to the report, the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef, which is previously known as the most pristine section in the entire reef, lost over half of its corals. The report also said that the amber-colored staghorn corals as well as the flat, fanlike tabular colors, known as two of the most popular species there, suffered the worst losses.
"You could say [the ecosystem] has collapsed. You could say it has degraded. I wouldn't say that's wrong," Hughes also said. "A more neutral way of putting it is that it has transformed into a completely new system that looks differently, and behaves differently, and functions differently, than how it was three years ago," he added.
The reef, which is considered as one of the largest living structures all over the world, is the home of thousands of species including sharks, whales, and turtles. But all of it is now in danger because of the damages over the years. This will also threaten over 70,000 jobs and several billions of dollars annually that comes from the tourism revenue of the natural attraction.
However, another study claimed that there is still hope for the corals of the Great Barrier Reef.
A study that was published by journal Plos Genetics reportedly calculated the possibility of seeing the Australian coral adapt and at least survive the climate change temporarily. It also mentioned that several species on the Great Barrier Reef will manage to survive for at least another 100 years, thanks to its ability to evolve.
"The capacity of corals to adapt to climate change is the largest missing number of the equation to predict what will happen to them in the future," the University of Texas at Austin's evolutionary biologist Mikhail Matz said. He is also the lead researcher for the study titled "Potential and Limits for Rapid Genetic Adaptation to Warming in a Great Barrier Reef coral."
Based on the said study, the overall genetic wealth of the Great Barrier Reef showed that it could possibly survive even during the occurrence of dramatic levels of population loss.
"They have safety in numbers, in genetic terms," Matz also said.
