Albinism, species invasion, 80 hurricanes, don't take it seriously!
The Great Barrier Reef’s "first wide" coral has strong resilience
Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, August 19 (Reporter Zhang Mengran) A biological paper published on the 19th by the Science Reports under the British Natural Science Research Institute reported on a rare super large coral discovered on the Great Barrier Reef. This super large coral is not only the Great Barrier Reef discovered so far. For hundreds of years, it has also had amazing resilience under the "suppression" of large-scale hurricanes and bleaching events.
The Great Barrier Reef has the largest and longest coral reef in the world, and has unique scientific research conditions.
However, in the past 20 years, the severe pressure brought by the warming of the ocean has swept across corals around the world, and it has been proved that it is the most destructive to the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef corals have now experienced several large-scale bleaching events.
This coral was discovered by snorkelers near the coast of Orpheus Island, which is part of the Palm Islands in Queensland, Australia.
People who have been guarding the Palm Islands throughout history named it "Muga dhambi", which means "big coral".
A team of Australian scientist Adam Smith and his colleagues conducted a detailed study of "Muga dhambi" and found that it is hemispherical, 5.3 meters high and 10.4 meters wide, 2.4 meters wider than the second widest coral in the Great Barrier Reef.
Based on calculations based on coral growth rate and annual sea surface temperature, the research team estimated that "Muga dhambi" appeared between 421 and 438 years ago, earlier than the earliest Europeans discovered and settled in Australia.
A review of environmental events in the past 450 years revealed that “Muga dhambi” may have experienced as many as 80 major hurricanes and has been exposed to invasive species, coral bleaching events, low tides and human activities for hundreds of years.
But unexpectedly, the researchers found that "Muga dhambi" is in good health, with a 70% coverage of live corals, and the rest are green perforated sponges, turf seaweeds and green algae.
The research team recommends close monitoring of this rare and highly resilient large coral, and believes that it may need to be restored, so as to minimize future climate change, deterioration of water quality, overfishing and coastal development. Potential negative impacts.