Dead Coral Reefs Can Come Back to Life
Coral reefs may be able to recover from disaster, according to a study that provides a bit of reassurance about the future of these endangered ecosystems. Coral reefs around the world are at risk as the ocean’s temperature continues to rise. Those trends could kill not only coral but also the fish and other species that depend on the reefs. Those reefs are important for people as well.
The study focused on beautiful coral reefs off the Pacific coast of Panama. They are seemingly a permanent feature of that coastline, but it turns out they have had a troubled history. Professor Richard Aronson at the Florida Institute of Technology and his colleagues discovered that by taking a core sample of the reef, just as a tree expert takes a sample of tree rings.