In this photo, healthy brown coral gives way to the frontlines of disease. But coral bleaching is much more than an aesthetic loss. 4.1.2 The causes of coral bleaching The primary cause of mass coral bleaching is increased sea temperatures 9,13,18,23,53.At a local scale,many stressors including disease, sedimentation, cyanide fishing, pollutants and changes in salinity may cause corals to bleach. The coral is unable to deal with the by-products of the algae (zooxanthellae), so the algae is expelled from the corals tissue. A warming ocean: causes thermal stress that contributes to coral bleaching and infectious disease. Those are some from many causes of coral bleaching and so when the temperature and pH change it will let the bleaching occur. “It is a direct consequence of increasing water temperatures. In 2016, 90% of the Great Barrier Reef experienced coral bleaching, which resulted in a 20% loss of the coral reefs. The reef suffered a mass bleaching event in the summer of 2010, when water temperatures were unusually high. Change in ocean temperature: increased ocean temperature caused by climate change is the leading cause of coral bleaching Coral bleaching causes a permanent change in fish life Date: June 18, 2019 Source: Lancaster University Summary: Repeat coral bleaching caused by rising sea temperatures has resulted in … Yet sometimes, technical terminology can create a barrier for people who have trouble understanding the coral bleaching concept as well as coral bleaching causes. Ecological causes of coral bleaching As coral reef bleaching is a general response to stress, it can be induced by a variety of factors, alone or in combination. Coral bleaching is an actual concern. It is therefore difficult to unequivocally identify the causes for bleaching events. Sea level rise: may lead to increases in sedimentation for reefs located near land-based sources of sediment. Instances of coral bleaching have become more common over the last decade as global climate change continues to cause an increase in the temperatures of the ocean. Coral bleaching is thought to be a result of stress on the coral. Mass bleaching… Bleached corals have lowered defenses against disease, so often will suffer further damage and death as disease moves in after a bleaching event. The bleaching may lead the coral reef to death slowly, it also shows that the algae and phytoplankton inside the coral reef is died and can’t distribute food for coral. The following stressors have been implicated in coral reef bleaching … Bleached coral - coral is left bleached and vulnerable: without the algae, the coral loses its major source of food, turns white or very pale, and is more susceptible to disease; What causes coral bleaching? NASA recently developed some very sensitive instruments to study coral reefs from an airplane flying above the ocean. They react by expelling the symbiotic algae that live in their tissues and then turn completely white. The symbiotic algae, called zooxanthellae, are photosynthetic and provide their host coral … This is known as coral bleaching. They do become more vulnerable to death however, especially if the stress continues for a long period of time. This does not necessarily mean the coral is dead - corals can survive bleaching! During bleaching, the coral expels its algal partners that live within the coral tissue. Sedimentation runoff can lead to the smothering of coral. It is an environmental indicator: an omen of starving animals, a failing ocean ecosystem and a devastating change in global climate. Therefore it is important to know what is coral bleaching, how it bleeds, and how it really affects all the aspects of life. “Coral bleaching is a leading cause of coral death around the world,” said Iliana Baums, professor of biology at Penn State and an author of the paper. 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