Coral Reef Description and Threats

Elissa Parker

Professor Burchsted

March 26, 2018

Coral Reef Description and Threats

            Coral reefs are something that the world has been slightly following for the last couple of years. They are beautiful parts of the ocean, but they are becoming endangered day by day due to pollution, humans, and so much more. Coral reefs are home to 25% of all marine life which is why scientists are making a big deal of these beautiful homes being endangered. These biomes are found in warm water, near the surface of the ocean to allow the life to grow. With all this life in the reefs, there are abundant amounts of producers and consumers. The main producer in the reefs is Blue- Green Algae. These algae are what produces the food the corals consume, and they live inside the corals, though this alga can become poisonous to the corals if water becomes too warm and this makes coral bleaching occur. Coral bleaching is an epidemic mostly caused by global warming and there is not much that people can do to prevent this. As for primary consumers, there are coral and sponges. These consumers feed off of mostly the algae but will also eat phytoplankton. These are very important to this biome because corals are the main habitat housing for the 25% of animals that live there. They can protect them from predators and protect them from the elements.

  Blue-green algae bloom  Wikipedia    

  Pictures of a coral reef
        Wikipedia   

  

  A yellow tube spongeWikipedia

Global Warming and its Effects on our Surroundings

              Global warming has been happening and advancing for the last decade or so. This has been affecting so many of our biomes around us such as deciduous forests, but what has been affected harshly has been the coral reefs and oceans. The reefs have been used to such a set temperature for as long as it has been alive that even the smallest temperature fluctuation can have detrimental effects. As stated before this can cause coral bleaching. This is when the corals push out all the algae, which is also their food, which then makes them lose all their color and maybe even die. As the corals die off, many animals lose their homes which can cause some animals to become endangered.  
              Humans are causing global warming by releasing greenhouse gases into the air and water from burning fossil fuels. This goes hand in hand with pollution. Oil and other dangerous chemicals are being released into oceans every day and these harsh liquids including, sewage and oil, are hurting animals and all in all killing them. As the algae becomes poisonous the corals die off, then the animals who eat the coral have no food and their numbers go down which effects who eats them and goes all the up to humans. Just as if a plankton eats oil then many of the humans who eat fish are also eating oil because of the food chain. 
              Solutions for this problem are not easy to fix.  It has taken years to get to the point we are at and will take twice the amount to fix all of it. Many are trying to cut down on large factories and other power plants that continue to pollute our air with toxins that make global warming happen. "Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs) today, the Earth would still warm by another degree Fahrenheit or so."(National Geographic). Sadly, Global warming happens everywhere and to every biome. Even in New Hampshire it is a problem. There is deforestation and harmful gases being put into the atmosphere by even daily things we do. Cars, planes, diets, and more are responsible for this mess. they take resources such as gas and oil to let us achieve our goals and what many people don't realize is that these resources don't just get replenished, once we use them they are gone.

Exxon Valdez trash pile
Wikipedia

Keene and Our Influence on Global Warming

                 Keene does not having any coral reefs around it. Actually, our waters would never become warm enough for a coral reef. What keene can do is just to help with pollution and global warming. Reduce waste produced by cars, large farms, plastic water bottles even. This not only will help coral reefs but also the biome we live in. What keene people can do to help out is, reduce how much you use your car. This will decrease the amount of methane that is being released into the atmosphere, which is contributing to the warming of the Earth. Bikes are easy to store on campus and promote exercise as well. We can also start using reusable water bottles. Many people can't tell the difference between our tap water and bottled water so why are we using the extra plastic. When buying foods, make sure you're buying from local farms, as transportation of them creates less chemicals being released into the atmosphere because of the shorter distances traveled. Also cutting down on the amount of meat you eat. These usually come from big farms and meat farms are actually doing more damage than we know. There are small things everyone can do to reduce our footstep in global warming and hopefully one day we won't have to worry about the damage of the coral reefs.

Oil Cleanup
Wikipedia