Download or read book Our Dying Planet written by Peter Sale and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011-09-12 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coral reefs are on track to become the first ecosystem actually eliminated from the planet. So says leading ecologist Peter F. Sale in this crash course on the state of the planet. Sale draws from his own extensive work on coral reefs, and from recent research by other ecologists, to explore the many ways we are changing the earth and to explain why it matters. Weaving into the narrative his own firsthand field experiences around the world, Sale brings ecology alive while giving a solid understanding of the science at work behind today’s pressing environmental issues. He delves into topics including overfishing, deforestation, biodiversity loss, use of fossil fuels, population growth, and climate change while discussing the real consequences of our growing ecological footprint. Most important, this passionately written book emphasizes that a gloom-and-doom scenario is not inevitable, and as Sale explores alternative paths, he considers the ways in which science can help us realize a better future.

Download or read book The Great Barrier Reef written by Pat Hutchings and published by CSIRO PUBLISHING. This book was released on 2008-11-07 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is 344 400 square kilometres in size and is home to one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. This comprehensive guide describes the organisms and ecosystems of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as the biological, chemical and physical processes that influence them. Contemporary pressing issues such as climate change, coral bleaching, coral disease and the challenges of coral reef fisheries are also discussed. In addition,the book includes a field guide that will help people to identify the common animals and plants on the reef, then to delve into the book to learn more about the roles the biota play. Beautifully illustrated and with contributions from 33 international experts, The Great Barrier Reef is a must-read for the interested reef tourist, student, researcher and environmental manager. While it has an Australian focus, it can equally be used as a baseline text for most Indo-Pacific coral reefs. Winner of a Whitley Certificate of Commendation for 2009.

Download or read book Coral Health and Disease written by Eugene Rosenberg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2004-04-27 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book opens with case studies of reefs in the Red Sea, Caribbean, Japan, Indian Ocean and the Great Barrier Reef. A section on microbial ecology and physiology describes the symbiotic relations of corals and microbes, and the microbial role in nutrition or bleaching resistance of corals. Coral diseases are covered in the third part. The volume includes 50 color photos of corals and their environments

Download or read book A Research Review of Interventions to Increase the Persistence and Resilience of Coral Reefs written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-04-05 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coral reef declines have been recorded for all major tropical ocean basins since the 1980s, averaging approximately 30-50% reductions in reef cover globally. These losses are a result of numerous problems, including habitat destruction, pollution, overfishing, disease, and climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions and the associated increases in ocean temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have been implicated in increased reports of coral bleaching, disease outbreaks, and ocean acidification (OA). For the hundreds of millions of people who depend on reefs for food or livelihoods, the thousands of communities that depend on reefs for wave protection, the people whose cultural practices are tied to reef resources, and the many economies that depend on reefs for fisheries or tourism, the health and maintenance of this major global ecosystem is crucial. A growing body of research on coral physiology, ecology, molecular biology, and responses to stress has revealed potential tools to increase coral resilience. Some of this knowledge is poised to provide practical interventions in the short-term, whereas other discoveries are poised to facilitate research that may later open the doors to additional interventions. A Research Review of Interventions to Increase the Persistence and Resilience of Coral Reefs reviews the state of science on genetic, ecological, and environmental interventions meant to enhance the persistence and resilience of coral reefs. The complex nature of corals and their associated microbiome lends itself to a wide range of possible approaches. This first report provides a summary of currently available information on the range of interventions present in the scientific literature and provides a basis for the forthcoming final report.

Download or read book Life on the Rocks written by Juli Berwald and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-04-04 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER AND BOOKLIST The story of the urgent fight to save coral reefs, and why it matters to us all Coral reefs are a microcosm of our planet: extraordinarily diverse, deeply interconnected, and full of wonders. When they’re thriving, these fairy gardens hidden beneath the ocean’s surface burst with color and life. They sustain bountiful ecosystems and protect vulnerable coasts. Corals themselves are evolutionary marvels that build elaborate limestone formations from their collective skeletons, broker symbiotic relationships with algae, and manufacture their own fluorescent sunblock. But corals across the planet are in the middle of an unprecedented die-off, beset by warming oceans, pollution, damage by humans, and a devastating pandemic. Juli Berwald fell in love with coral reefs as a marine biology student, entranced by their beauty and complexity. Alarmed by their peril, she traveled the world to discover how to prevent their loss. She met scientists and activists operating in emergency mode, doing everything they can think of to prevent coral reefs from disappearing forever. She was so amazed by the ingenuity of these last-ditch efforts that she joined in rescue missions, unexpected partnerships, and risky experiments, and helped rebuild reefs with rebar and zip ties. Life on the Rocks is an inspiring, lucid, meditative ode to the reefs and the undaunted scientists working to save them against almost impossible odds. As she also attempts to help her daughter in her struggle with mental illness, Berwald explores what it means to keep fighting a battle whose outcome is uncertain. She contemplates the inevitable grief of climate change and the beauty of small victories.

Download or read book Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas written by Forest Rohwer and published by Plaid Productions. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The influence of fishing, nutrients, bacteria, viruses, and climate change on nature's most wondrous constructs"--Cover.

Download or read book The Ecology of an Hawaiian Coral Reef written by Charles Howard Edmondson and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Reef in Time written by J.E.N. Veron and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-31 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like many coral specialists fifteen years ago, Veron thought Australia's Great Barrier Reef was impervious to climate change. Then he saw for himself the devastation that elevated sea temperatures can inflict on corals.

Download or read book Environmental ScienceBites written by Kylienne A. Clark and published by The Ohio State University. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was written by undergraduate students at The Ohio State University (OSU) who were enrolled in the class Introduction to Environmental Science. The chapters describe some of Earth's major environmental challenges and discuss ways that humans are using cutting-edge science and engineering to provide sustainable solutions to these problems. Topics are as diverse as the students, who represent virtually every department, school and college at OSU. The environmental issue that is described in each chapter is particularly important to the author, who hopes that their story will serve as inspiration to protect Earth for all life.

Download or read book Microplastic Pollution written by Mohd. Shahnawaz and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Coral Whisperers written by Irus Braverman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, a catastrophic global bleaching event devastated many of the world’s precious coral reefs. Working on the front lines of ruin, today’s coral scientists are struggling to save these important coral reef ecosystems from the imminent threats of rapidly warming, acidifying, and polluted oceans. Coral Whisperers captures a critical moment in the history of coral reef science. Gleaning insights from over one hundred interviews with leading scientists and conservation managers, Irus Braverman documents a community caught in an existential crisis and alternating between despair and hope. In this important new book, corals emerge not only as signs and measures of environmental catastrophe, but also as catalysts for action.

Download or read book What is Killing the Corals written by Nitzan Soffer and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corals have multiple roles in maintaining ocean health and are some of the world's most diverse ecosystems. The coral animal is host to a multitude of taxa, including symbiotic dinoflagellate algae, fungi, bacteria, protists, and viruses. Environmental stressors and disease agents can perturb the delicate balance of the coral host and its microbiota, which can lead to disease. This ultimately results in reduced fitness and/or mortality. There are over 30 described coral disease signs, but with a few exceptions, little is known about their potential etiological agents. Without knowledge on the causes of these diseases, little can be done to mitigate future outbreaks. Chapter 1 of this dissertation provides examples for studying novel diseases in difficult to study organisms with the use of metagenomic tools. Armed with these metagenomic tools and electron microscopy, this dissertation aimed to determine potential pathogens in two coral diseases, White Plague disease (WP), and Growth Anomalies (GAs). First, I set to determine whether viruses may be involved in WP disease from a 2010 outbreak in the US Virgin Islands (USVI). In chapter 2, I compared viromes from 21 Montastraea annularis samples (7= Diseased, 7= Diseased=Bleached, 5= Bleached, 2= Healthy) and surrounding seawater (n=2). After comparing the viromes, I found that small circular REP- encoding eukaryotic ssDNA viruses (SCSDv) similar to circo and nano viruses were associated with WP diseased tissue, and thus potential pathogens. Electron microscopy confirmed the presence of viral particles, and absence of bacterial infection in WP diseased tissue. Even though it was likely that viruses are involved with WP it was still important to understand the changes in bacterial community and the roles of bacteriophages during WP coral infection to characterize opportunistic microbes. These questions were addressed in Chapter 3 where I described the bacterial communities and bacteriophage consortia associated with the USVI corals. I also constructed phage-bacteria networks to understand which phages may interact with bacteria of interest (those shown to be differentially abundant in Montastraea annularis of different health states). I determined that there was a range of interaction specificity across the different phages and bacteria. Chapter 4 aimed to elucidate a potential pathogen responsible for Growth Anomalies, a chronic disease resulting in skeletal deformities, loss of symbiotic algae and reduction of fitness in Hawaiin Porites lobata. By comparing microbial and viral metagenomes across health states I was able to determine any changes in composition from healthy and diseased corals. Overall, microbial communities and viral consortia did not vary across health states. The hypothesized Porites spp. symbiont Oceanspirillales was dominant in all libraries. However, relative abundances of taxa in the orders Vibrionales and Verrucomicrobiales were elevated in diseased compared to healthy corals and healthy appearing tissue of GA infected corals. In addition, bacterial functional pathways remained stable across health states, while signatures of virulence factors were elevated in diseased viromes from healthy. Lastly, chapter 5 summarized overall trends of microbes and viruses determined through the studies. In addition, suggestions for future studies were outlined. Overall, this dissertation revealed a potential viral pathogenic group for white plague disease, explored how phages can influence bacterial opportunists in corals of different health states, and determined bacterial orders and virulence factors that are associated with Growth Anomalies. This dissertation includes the first study to find an association between a viral group and coral disease. In addition, this dissertation contains the first (to date) phage-bacterial inferred network constructed from paired phage-bacteria metagenomes.

Download or read book Coral Bleaching written by Madeleine J. H. van Oppen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most serious consequences of global climate change for coral reefs is the increased frequency and severity of mass coral bleaching events and, since the first edition of this volume was published in 2009, there have been additional mass coral bleaching events. This book provides comprehensive information on the causes and consequences of coral bleaching for coral reef ecosystems, from the genes and microbes involved in the bleaching response, to individual coral colonies and whole reef systems. It presents detailed analyses of how coral bleaching can be detected and quantified and reviews future scenarios based on modeling efforts and the potential mechanisms of acclimatisation and adaptation. It also briefly discusses emerging research areas that focus on the development of innovative interventions aiming to increase coral climate resilience and restore reefs.

Download or read book The Empty Ocean written by Richard Ellis and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Empty Ocean, acclaimed author and artist Richard Ellis tells the story of our continued plunder of life in the sea and weighs the chances for its recovery. Through fascinating portraits of a wide array of creatures, he introduces us to the many forms of sea life that humans have fished, hunted, and collected over the centuries, from charismatic whales and dolphins to the lowly menhaden, from sea turtles to cod, tuna, and coral. Rich in history, anecdote, and surprising fact, Richard Ellis’s descriptions bring to life the natural history of the various species, the threats they face, and the losses they have suffered. Killing has occurred on a truly stunning scale, with extinction all too often the result, leaving a once-teeming ocean greatly depleted. But the author also finds instances of hope and resilience, of species that have begun to make remarkable comebacks when given the opportunity. Written with passion and grace, and illustrated with Richard Ellis’s own drawings, The Empty Ocean brings to a wide audience a compelling view of the damage we have caused to life in the sea and what we can do about it. "

Download or read book A Good Forest for Dying written by Patrick Beach and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2004-04-06 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early on a September morning in 1998, David “Gypsy” Chain and eight fellow Earth First! activists went into the redwood forests of Scotia, California. Their loosely organized plan to protest the destruction caused by the logging industry almost immediately turned farcically tragic. A. E. Ammons, a logger for Pacific Lumber, confronted the group, threatening them in an obscenity-ridden diatribe: if they didn't leave "I'll make sure I got a tree comin' this way!" The group retreated, moving deeper into the wilderness. A short time later, just as they were attempting to confront the logger yet again, Gypsy was dead, crushed to death by a tree Ammons felled. A GOOD FOREST FOR DYING traces the long history of bitter clashes between environmental concerns and economic interests in the American West and shows why these tensions came to a head in northern California in the 1990s. It tells the story of how Pacific Lumber, once an environmentally friendly, family-owned business, became part of a conglomerate whose business practices made it a ripe target for environmental activists. But A GOOD FOREST FOR DYING is also the story of Gypsy Chain, a troubled young man raised in a loving family. A social misfit in his small Texas hometown, he died in a faraway forest before he had a chance to come to terms with himself and his family. His mother never lost faith in her sometimes wayward, idealistic son. After his death, and helped by a team of shrewd, leftist lawyers, she mounted a fight for justice in the name of her son and the cause of saving the redwoods. A balanced, highly readable examination of complex, emotionally charged issues, A GOOD FOREST FOR DYING will appeal to a wide audience. Its insights into the inner workings of the radical environmental movement and its dissection of corporate greed and misdeeds are reminiscent of such provocative exposés as A Civil Action and Erin Brockovich. The story of Gypsy’s strange odyssey and the disturbing circumstances of his death–seen primarily through the eyes of his mother–is as powerful and as moving as Jon Krakauer’s classic Into the Wild.

Download or read book Our Warming Planet Topics In Climate Dynamics written by Cynthia Rosenzweig and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2018-01-18 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The processes and consequences of climate change are extremely heterogeneous, encompassing many different fields of study. Dr David Rind in his career at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and as a professor at Columbia University has had the opportunity to explore many of these subjects with colleagues from these diverse disciplines. It was therefore natural for the Lectures in Climate Change series to begin with his colleagues contributing lectures on their specific areas of expertise.This first volume, entitled Our Warming Planet: Topics in Climate Dynamics, encompasses topics such as natural and anthropogenic climate forcing, climate modeling, radiation, clouds, atmospheric dynamics/storms, hydrology, clouds, the cryosphere, paleoclimate, sea level rise, agriculture, atmospheric chemistry, and climate change education. Included with this publication are downloadable PowerPoint slides of each lecture for students and teachers around the world to be better able to understand various aspects of climate change.The lectures on climate change processes and consequences provide snapshots of the cutting-edge work being done to understand what may well be the greatest challenge of our time, in a form suitable for classroom presentation.

Download or read book A Reef Manager s Guide to Coral Bleaching written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores emerging monitoring strategies and presents adaptive management techniques to anticipate and mitigate coral bleaching, with emphasis upon identification and promotion of resilience in coral reef ecosystems. Includes coverage of strategic use of marine protected areas.