A team of scientists from the One Tree Island Research Post at the University of Sydney has confirmed that ocean acidification negatively affects coral development.
It is estimated that 40% of the carbon dioxide that is emitted into the atmosphere as a result of industrial and agricultural processes and the burning of fossil fuels is absorbed by the sea. For this reason, its waters become more acidic, so much so that it can corrode the shells of some marine organisms and the structure of corals. These are especially vulnerable, since they are formed by the accretion of calcium carbonate, something that acidification makes difficult.
In fact, some ecologists are convinced that a good part of the coral populations may disappear throughout this century due to this phenomenon . In an article published in the journal Nature , experts from the aforementioned Australian institution describe how they manipulated the chemical conditions of the water in a reef so that they resemble the pH – that is, the measure of its acidity or alkalinity – that they would present before development. industrial. In this way, they observed that, under these conditions, the coral formation process improved remarkably.
In the last decade, several studies have shown that corals are experiencing significant decline . For example, between 2008 and 2009, its calcification rate was 40% lower than in 1975 and 1976. However, it is not yet clear to what extent human activities, from the aforementioned emissions to overfishing, influence this. .
In this sense, the signatories of the essay indicate that their work provides solid evidence that today corals grow more slowly than a century ago, something that already has consequences on the diversity of these organisms, which are key in ocean ecosystems. In his opinion, the only measure that could be taken to try to reverse this situation is to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Image: Albert Kok
