![]() As of now, about 75 percent of all coral reefs in the world are threatened by climate change and other human activities, and without concerted efforts to save them, scientists estimate 99 percent will be gone by the end of the century.ĭeep-water reefs, like the ones found off the Galápagos, are usually less affected by bleaching and temperature increases, but over time, even they cannot escape the effects of climate change, Gizmodo writes. This process, also called coral bleaching, leaves them vulnerable to starvation. Corals are particularly sensitive to temperature changes in the water, which can often cause them to expel the symbiotic algae that lives within coral tissue. ![]() alone, the total economic value of coral reef services is about $3.4 billion.īut since 1950, scientists estimate the world has lost half of all its coral reefs because of climate change, overfishing and pollution. They support about 25 percent of all known marine species, rake in billions of dollars for fisheries and tourism and help protect shorelines from erosion. “It reaffirms our determination to establish new marine protected areas in Ecuador and to continue promoting the creation of a regional marine protected area in the eastern tropical Pacific.”Ĭoral reefs, sometimes called “rainforests of the sea,” are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. “This is encouraging news,” José Antonio Dávalos, the environment minister for Ecuador, says in the statement. But these Galápagos reefs have 50 to 60 percent live corals in some areas, supporting pink octopus, batfish, squat lobsters and an array of deep-sea fish, sharks and rays. In these cases, the remaining 80 to 90 percent of the reef consists of dead coral skeletons, which still provide habitat for marine life. In the deep sea, 10 to 20 percent coral cover is considered the norm, per a statement from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The newfound reefs are also “rare,” Taylor tells the publication, because of their high percentage of live coral. “However, this reef was pristine just a dense mass of layers of ancient coral with a frosting of live coral across the top.” ![]() “In other surveyed deep-sea reef areas, there are often examples of lost fishing gear, rubbish such as cans, bottles and plastic bags, or even areas that have obviously been trawled and thus cleared of all their reef structure,” Michelle Taylor, a deep-sea marine biologist at the University of Essex in England and a co-leader of the expedition, tells Gizmodo’s Lauren Leffer. The reefs stretch about 1.2 miles long and appear largely untouched by human activities, which researchers say is a very uncommon find. A quarter mile beneath the ocean’s surface in Ecuador’s Galápagos Marine Reserve, scientists have discovered ancient, deep-sea coral reefs-the first of their kind ever documented in the marine protected area. ![]()
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