Blog Post #10 - corals

This week, I am spending almost all my time preparing for my biology exam on plant and animal life. One thing in the lecture that really stood out to me was when our professor discussed Anthozoa. This is a class of marine invertebrates that include sea anemones, sea fans, and hard corals. We learned about hermatypic corals, which are the ones you see when you go to the Caribbean. They are only found in warm waters, specifically 30N and 30S latitude. They house such a vast majority of fishes and marine life. They are VITAL. They are amongst the most productive areas in the world. However; unfortunately, there are a lot of disturbances for these corals. The most impactful disturbances on corals are climate change and ocean acidification. Climate change is obviously a huge factor in the drastic die off of corals, along with many other species. It causes the corals to bleach, which is a process in which they give up zooxanthellae. Zooxanthellae is a very important bacteria with which corals have a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. If they don’t reclaim the zooxanthellae in time, they will die and become white. Today, 25% of the reefs are unrepairable and ⅔ of the remaining reefs are threatened. This got me thinking. I have been so fortunate to grow up going to the Caribbean where I can go snorkeling. I can’t remember a time my mom and I did not snorkel when we took a trip down there. Not once, did I ever think that there would be no snorkeling. Snorkeling has always been one of my favorite things to do. One day of the vacation, my mom and I would wake up early to go on a catamaran. We would spend the day on the boat that would take us to various famous places where we could see colorful corals with beautiful fish, turtles, and stingrays. There was so much to see. Unfortunately, my mom and I never used biodegradable sunscreen. Now, looking back at it, I know it is a horrible mistake, but there’s nothing I can do about the past. From now on, don’t worry I will use biodegradable sunscreen all the time. It makes me so sad to think that soon almost all of the coral reefs will be gone, and thus, a lot of marine life. People don’t realize that even humans depend on coral reefs. Five hundred million people worldwide depend on them. Learning about this all, I realized I need to start doing my part, if I want my kids to be able to go snorkeling and see the beautiful wonders of the world. It might be too far gone, but hopefully I am not the only one that feels this way. I think we just need some more education on the topic and people would be a lot more likely to take five more seconds to recycle instead of throw plastic away or take one extra minute to find the biodegradable sunscreen. We need the corals, so we need to start acting like it.