Climate Change and WA Marine Life

Ningaloo Reef is located on Western Australia's remote northwest coast. Its most dominant feature are its corals. When corals are mentioned, most people think of clear, warm tropical seas and reefs filled with colourful fish. In fact, shallow-water corals, the kind that build reefs, are only one type of coral. There are also soft corals and those that live in deep water. Coral reefs have been found to act as major carbon sinks- it is estimated that they currently absorb about 111 million tonnes of CO2 per year. 

Unfortunately, when corals are stressed by changes in conditions such as temperature, light, or nutrients, they expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, which causes them to turn completely white. When corals bleach, they are not dead. They can survive a bleaching event, but they are under stress and are ‘subject to mortality’- that’s a nice way of saying that too much of a bad thing and they die. The other greenhouse changes which contribute to tipping coral survival over the edge are things such as increased rainfall and runoff and increased storm activity. Thus, coral bleaching is of particular concern today, as our climate changes and temperatures rise. The question ‘What can we do to ensure the survival of our reef systems?’ is something that the marine biologists of the WA Museum are working on, and that we can all help to bring to fruition.