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IMAGE: Dr. Kay Davis conducts a benthic survey on a flat reef at Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia in December 2020. Below her, the coral has healthy, bleached, and dead. view more
Credit: Ashly McMahon
If the trend of declining coral growth continues at the current rate, the world s coral reefs may cease calcifying around 2054, a new Southern Cross University study has found.
Drawing on research from the late 1960s until now, the paper published in
Communications & Environment reveals the global spatiotemporal trends and drivers of coral reef ecosystem growth (known as calcification).
One hundred and sixteen studies from 53 published papers were analysed.
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IMAGE: Between 1990 and 2015 alone, up to 100 million tons of trash are believed to have entered the oceans. view more
Credit: Photo: Brian Yurasits via Unsplash
Plastic bottles drifting in the sea; bags in the stomachs of turtles; Covid-19 masks dancing in the surf: few images are as unpleasant to look at as those that show the contamination of our oceans. And few environmental issues are as urgent and as present in the public awareness. Most people have an emotional connection to the sea. They think of ocean pollution as an attack on a place they long for, said Nikoleta Bellou, marine scientist at Hereon s Institute of Coastal System - Analysis and Modeling. Between 1990 and 2015 alone, an estimated 100 million metric tons of mostly plastic waste entered the oceans. For that instance the study fits to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, which started this year to emphasize a sustainable use of the seas.
COVID-19 caused a 30% fall in electronic and electrical equipment sales in low- and middle-income countries but only a 5% fall in high-income countries, intensifying the north-south digital divide, the UN says.
Sales of heavy appliances like refrigerators fell hardest (6-8%) while laptops, cell phones and gaming equipment defied the general trend, rising in high-income countries and on a global basis, but dropping in low- and middle-income countries.
Researchers at the University of Notre Dame will lead a five-year study to improve the fundamental understanding, detection and predictability of marine sea fog.
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IMAGE: Two year study finds Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) is causing young clownfish to grow less and die faster. view more
Credit: Frederic Zuberer
Young clownfish living closest to shore are dying faster than those further offshore because they are being exposed to artificial lighting, says an international research team.
Working on the reefs around Moorea in French Polynesia, scientists from France, the United Kingdom, Chile and Australia found that nearshore juvenile clownfish living in anemones under lights had higher mortality than juveniles in anemones not exposed to artificial light.
The scientists also found that the surviving clownfish grew 44 per cent more slowly than clownfish under natural lighting conditions.