[Environment Report]:Study Finds Huge Drop in Caribbean Coral


This is the VOA Special English Environment Report.

Nassaugrouper lies in wait for its next meal on a Caribbean coralreef.
Nassaugrouper lies in wait for its next meal on a Caribbean coralreef.

A new study shows an eightypercent decrease of hard coral in the Caribbean Sea over the pastthirty years. Scientists from the University of East Anglia and theTyndall Center for Climate Change Research, both in Britain, did thestudy. They published their findings in Science.

Coral is made up of hundreds to hundreds of thousands oforganisms called polyps. Each is covered with cells filled withpoison. The coral uses the poison to defend itself and to captureits food.

Hard coral is what covers reefs. Soft coral, like sponges and seafans, live on hard coral.

In the nineteen-seventies, hard coral covered about fifty percentof the average reef in the Caribbean. Today, the researchers say,the cover is down to ten percent. They say it appears nothing likethis has happened before for at least three-thousand years.

Ocean biologist Isabelle Cote took part in the study. She saysthe scientists knew there were serious problems with the Caribbeanreef system, but what they found surprised them. They based theirfindings on sixty-five earlier studies that examined more thantwo-hundred-sixty areas of reef in the Caribbean Sea.

At first, the scientists were trying to learn the amount ofdestruction that ocean storms had caused to coral reefs over theyears. But the researchers decided they had to widen their study.Mizz Cote says they needed to be able to compare storm damage withdamage from other forces.

The study found that weather conditions have played a part in thedecrease of Caribbean coral. But the scientists say human activityhas been at least as equally destructive.

Overfishing is one problem. Fish eat plants that live on coral.The fish help keep a balance in the plant life. When too many fishare caught, some plants may spread too fast and kill the coral.

Pollution is also a problem. So too, they say, is the flow ofsoil into rivers that feed the sea. This includes soil from foreststhat have been cut down.

For coral cells to build a reef takes tens of thousands of years.Scientists say healthy reefs are not only important for nature. Themany different kinds of marine life may also provide materials fornew medicines.

The scientists who did the study say there are signs of recoveryin some areas of the Caribbean. But they say they do not know ifthis new coral will be able to survive any better.

This VOA Special English Environment Report was written by CatyWeaver.

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