วันเสาร์ที่ 3 มกราคม พ.ศ. 2558

It’s Time to Preserve Coral Reefs



It’s Time to Preserve Coral Reefs



            Coral reefs are some of the most important to marine ecosystem and world’s food webs. They are home of marine life such as crabs, shrimp, starfish, sea urchins, jellyfish, many species of fish and various types of fungi. Also, coral reefs can reduce damages from wave action on adjacent land. Unfortunately, today coral reefs are in crisis, they started bleaching. Is it time for us to preserve them?


Corals are animals, because they don’t produce their own food, as plants do. Coral reefs made up of tiny animals called “polyps”. Polyps have a strong exoskeletons made of calcium carbonate (limestone), the main structures of a reef. Each polyp has a ring of tentacles shaped like long arms with tips that can sting.  The healthy corals get their beautiful colors such as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple from tiny algae in their tissue. These algae help corals to provide food during photosynthesis. When seawater temperature gets too warm by global warming, pollutions from land, hot water that releases by power plants or whatever, algae will eject from the coral. Sooner, corals will completely turn into white and pale. When we look at corals, we will see only structures (limestone) which covered by thin layer tissue. This situation generally called “coral bleaching”.


There is good news, Global Coral Reef Alliance, non-profit organization which plays an important role in growing, managing, and protecting all marine ecosystems. They try to save and recover coral reefs by created new innovation called “Biorock” to re-generate the coral reefs from disease and climate changes. The biorock is a new method that uses low voltage of electric current to grow solid limestone rock structures in the sea and accelerate the growth of corals. It will construct habitats for marine life and protecting the shoreline.


Coral reefs are community of marine life and various type of micro-organism. They give us food and protect our land from wave action. Tragically, lots of coral reefs have been damaged by high temperature of seawater. There are many ways to recover and preserve our coral reefs for example, do not discarding garbage or human waste into the beach and learn more about coral reefs. Maybe you can help others understand how coral reef is important. However, it’s time for us to preserve them even though the biorock was created.




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