A 'catastrophe' in [#Florida's] #LowerKeys: Summer #heatwave wipes out iconic #ElkhornCoral 😢
WLRN Public Media | By Jenny Staletovich
Published August 16, 2024
"The blistering summer heat wave that hammered South Florida’s coral reefs last year wiped out the last wild stands of its iconic elkhorn coral in the Lower Keys, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [#NOAA] announced this week.
"The deaths amounted to a 77% loss in genetic diversity needed to help sustain a vanishing coral that once blanketed Florida reefs.
"That’s left scientists who have been working for decades to restore the antler-shaped coral struggling with what to do next.
"'The community wasn't expecting this kind of off-a-cliff #catastrophe,' said Ilsa Kuffner, a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. 'There were already declines that were pretty pronounced in the last 20 years. So this was a big ratcheting down of that.'
"When the heat wave hit, scientists were already struggling to keep up with efforts to grow and plant coral on an ailing reef under attack from a new disease that cropped up in 2014 near Miami. That disease had intensified restoration efforts and focused work on breeding a new resilient coral that could both tolerate heat and disease. The unexpected heat wave was like a fire alarm.
"By July, prolonged heat that began rising three months earlier was wilting coral, causing them to begin expelling their life-sustaining algae, turn white and die."
Read more:
https://www.wlrn.org/environment/2024-08-16/elkhorn-coral-reef-heat-florida-keys
#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateCatastrophe #HeatWaves #OceanWarming #GlobalWarming #CoralReef #Extinction #ExtremeHeat #CoralReefs #Biodiversity #DieOff
