SPAWN OF NEW ERA
REEF IS REBORN AS THE HEAT IS TURNED UP
THE Great Barrier Reef has put on the mother of coral spawning shows not experienced in recent years.
The impressive display this week has given Reef lovers great hope for its longevity as the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority issued a warning warm temperatures could pose a coral bleaching threat.
SEA temperatures will be ripe for coral bleaching this summer, but scientists say they still don’t know whether the Great Barrier Reef will face another mass bleaching event.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has today issued a warning that the possible marine heatwave is one of the biggest concerns for the marine park in coming months.
It follows reports from tour operators that the Reef this week has been experiencing its best mass coral spawning event in six years, boding well for reef recovery.
GBRMPA chief scientist Dr David Wachenfeld said the summer months were the highest risk period for coral reefs that were highly sensitive to even small temperature changes.
“Our climate is changing year-by-year and this is causing changes in the Reef ecosystem,” he said.
“It’s under pressure, which makes the Reef more vulnerable to possible impacts, particularly over summer.”
The northern part of the Great Barrier Reef, including several tourism hot spots, was affected by consecutive mass coral bleaching events from 2016-17.
About half the shallowwater corals across the marine park died during the bleaching events, according to GBRMPA.
James Cook University coral reef scientist Professor Morgan Pratchett in Cairns yesterday said it was still too early to tell what would happened to the Reef this summer.
“We are really watching the weather and that will be a critical determinant as to how bad it might get towards the peak temperatures in March,” Prof Pratchett said.
He said this week’s coral spawning event was good news for the Reef, in terms of its ability to reseed reefs damaged by bleaching and cyclone activity.
“This is part of the natural recovery process, which comes about by having live coral – at least some surviving live corals – on these reefs,” he said.
“The problem is, if we are looking to a future where we are getting ever-higher ocean temperatures, then it’s not far down the road where we’re going to see other major bleaching events such as what we’ve seen in 2016 and 2017.”