Diverse Ecology
Hodgson announced the findings at the University of California, Los Angeles, Ocean Discovery Center in Santa Monica. UCLA will become Reef Check’s new home after leaving Hong Kong this summer.
     The group, which recently released its third annual report, relies on the volunteer efforts of more than 1,500 divers and marine scientists to document the health of more than 250 reefs in more than 50 countries.
     Their cause is important because, by some measures, coral reefs have even more diverse life than rain forests, said Michael Crosby, senior science adviser for marine and coastal ecosystems for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
     All those species contain “a wealth of information we’re only beginning to tap into,” he said. One coral reef species is being used in bone grafts, and another has helped develop pesticides, Crosby said.

Protection From Extreme Weather
And reefs affect not just ocean health, but coastal health as well. They serve as natural breakwaters protecting land from typhoons and erosion, Crosby said.
     The beauty of coral reefs, and all the life within them, is both a reason to save them and a way to protect them. Hodgson said that in developing countries like the Philippines and Indonesia — homes of some of the most biologically diverse reefs — ecotourism can help people strike a better balance with the environment while continuing to make a living.
     On most of the reefs surveyed by Reef Check, important species that should be there — lobster, grouper, sea cucumbers — are missing, Hodgson said. Without such algae-eating creatures, algae becomes so dominant it overwhelms the ecosystem.
     The opposite problem hit many reefs in 1998, an El Nino year that saw the warmest ocean temperatures on record. The warmer conditions killed the algae the coral needs to survive, bleaching the reefs white.
     Coral structures are colonies of animals, and they get their color from algae. In bleaching, the animals expel most of the algae. Usually, the remaining algae can repopulate the coral later on and restore its color.
     An otherwise healthy reef can bounce back from a bleaching. But for those already stressed, “a bleaching event can push them over the edge,” Crosby said.

Warming Oceans
Reef problems triggered by climate changes are continuing. In early April, Fiji began seeing major coral bleaching, Hodgson said. Nearly two-thirds of the coral reefs around the islands are bleached, and 15 percent are dead, he said.
     In separate findings reported in the May 4 issue of the journal Nature, scientists found that for the first time in the Caribbean, a large population of coral was killed by bleaching.
     Since the 1998 bleaching was blamed on unusually warm sea temperatures, the coral death is another signal to be concerned about global climate change, said Rich Aronson, a senior marine scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab on Dauphin Island, Ala.
     In coastal reefs in Belize, coral animals themselves were killed by the severe bleaching in 1998, Aronson and colleagues found in recent studies. For the dominant kind of coral in an area covering at least 140 square miles, he said, “it was just a complete wipeout.”
     The killing ranged from depths of three feet to the floor of the reef about 70 feet down, he said. That range reinforces the idea that the high water temperature was responsible, Aronson said.
     Efforts to monitor and protect the 425,000 acres of coral reefs in the United States have gained steam since 1998, when President Clinton created a task force to tackle the problem, Crosby said.