Baby corals pass the acid test

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.coralcoe.org.au/news/baby-corals-pass-the-acid-test

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Posted on August 13, 2013
[font size=5]Baby corals pass the acid test[/font]

[font size=3]Corals can survive the early stages of their development even under the tough conditions that rising carbon emissions will impose on them says a new study from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

Globally, ocean acidification due to the burning of fossil fuels remains a major concern and scientists say it could have severe consequences for the health of adult corals, however, the evidence for negative effects on the early life stages of corals is less clear cut.

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“The prevailing view is that ocean acidification will act like a toxin to corals, but we were unconvinced by results from previous work on young corals and ocean acidification so we tested critical early stages of development in several coral species at several different acid (or ‘pH’) concentrations of seawater.

“Our results showed no clear response to increasing ocean acidification in any of the stages, or for any of the coral species,” says Dr Baird. “In fact, in only one of nine experiments did we get the response expected if CO2 was acting like a toxin. More often than not we found no effect.”

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http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v486/p143-151/

[NickB79]

1. All is not rosy when you read further in

Although their results suggest that ocean acidification may not affect the early stages of coral development, the team warn that this does not mean acidification is not a threat to corals.

“Undoubtedly, as the oceans become more acidic adult corals are going to struggle to build their skeletons, which might hinder their ability to grow, reproduce and compete for space on reefs. We also have to remember that the oceans are getting warmer, so corals will be dealing with higher temperatures, as well as higher acidity.

“Fortunately, before corals settle on to reefs they don’t need to grow a skeleton, which might explain why they are apparently unaffected in by higher levels of ocean acidification,” says Dr Chia-Miin Chua, the lead author of the study.

Uh oh......