What's killing the coral reef?

Question

and what are some good websites on this?

Answer 1

Please see the web page for more details on Coral reef. The construction of ship channel in between India and Sri Lanka has caused the destruction of coral reef in Palk strait.

Answer 2

Fresh water . Look at the coral reef and if there is a river emptying in to the ocean at that point there will be a large hole in the reef. Nothing wrong just nature.

Answer 3

ummmm lets see....humans which cause global warming which cause the bleaching of beaching of coral.

Answer 4

Coral reef ecosystems world-wide have been subject to unprecedented degradation over the past few decades. Disturbances affecting coral reefs include anthropogenic and natural events. Recent accelerated coral reef decline seems to be related mostly to anthropogenic impacts (overexploitation, overfishing, increased sedimentation and nutrient overloading. Natural disturbances which cause damage to coral reefs include violent storms, flooding, high and low temperature extremes, El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, subaerial exposures, predatory outbreaks and epizootics. Coral reef bleaching is a common stress response of corals to many of the various disturbances mentioned above.

As coral reef bleaching is a general response to stress, it can be induced by a variety of factors, alone or in combination. It is therefore difficult to unequivocally identify the causes for bleaching events. The following stressors have been implicated in coral reef bleaching events.

Temperature

Coral species live within a relatively narrow temperature margin, and anomalously low and high sea temperatures can induce coral bleaching. Bleaching events occur during sudden temperature drops accompanying intense upwelling episodes, (-3 degrees C to –5 degrees C for 5-10 days), seasonal cold-air outbreaks. Bleaching is much more frequently reported from elevated se water temperature. A small positive anomaly of 1-2 degrees C for 5-10 weeks during the summer season will usually induce bleaching.
Graph of todays sea surface temperature anomolies. Provided by satelite data from NOAA analyzed to a 50 km resolution. Color bars represent .5 degrees celcius anomolyn increments, red is possitive anomolies, blue is negative anomolies.
Solar Irradiance

Bleaching during the summer months, during seasonal temperature and irradiance maxima often occurs disproportionately in shallow-living corals and on the exposed summits of colonies. Solar radiation has been suspected to play a role in coral bleaching. Both photosyntheticaly active radiation (PAR, 400-700nm) and ultraviolet radiation (UVR, 280-400nm) have been implicated in bleaching.

Subaerial Exposure

Sudden exposure of reef flat corals to the atmosphere during events such as extreme low tides, ENSO-related sea level drops or tectonic uplift can potentially induce bleaching. The consequent exposure to high or low temperatures, increased solar radiation, desiccation, and sea water dilution by heavy rains could all play a role in zooxanthellae loss, but could also very well lead to coral death.

Sedimentation

Relatively few instances of coral bleaching have been linked solely to sediment. It is possible, but has not been demonstrated, that sediment loading could make zooxanthellate species more likely to bleach.

Fresh Water Dilution

Rapid dilution of reef waters from storm-generated precipitation and runoff has been demonstrated to cause coral reef bleaching. Generally, such bleaching events are rare and confined to relatively small, nearshore areas.

Inorganic Nutrients

Rather than causing coral reef bleaching, an increase in ambient elemental nutrient concentrations (e.g. ammonia and nitrate) actually increases zooxanthellae densities 2-3 times. Although eutrophication is not directly involved in zooxanthellae loss, it could cause secondary adverse affects such as lowering of coral resistance and greater susceptibility to diseases.

Xenobiotics

Zooxanthellae loss occurs during exposure of coral to elevated concentrations of various chemical contaminants, such as Cu, herbicides and oil. Because high concentrations of xenobiotics are required to induce zooxanthellae loss, bleaching from such sources is usually extremely localized and / or transitory .

Epizootics

Pathogen induced bleaching is different from other sorts of bleaching. Most coral diseases cause patchy or whole colony death and sloughing of soft tissues, resulting in a white skeleton (not to be confused with bleached corals). A few pathogens have been identified the cause translucent white tissues, a protozoan.

Answer 5

I've included a few websties I've found useful.