 |
 |
 |
 |
 ABOUTfeatured: 30 Best Snorkeling Blogs Fun Ways to enjoy the caribbeanJan 2, 11 Comments Off
Good evening all, here is a progress photo of the coral bleaching for you all this evening. On November 18th, I sent you this same photo except then it was completely bleached! First check it out at the link below so you can see the difference. http://www.coralreefphotos.com/bleached-grooved-brain-coral-faces-in-nature/ Now as you can see it’s starting to come back to life with small patches of brown all over. As I have said before Coral Bleaching, or the paling of zooxanthellate invertebrates, occurs when the densities of zooxanthellae decline and or the concentration of photosynthetic pigments within the zooxanthellae fall. When corals bleach they commonly lose 60-90% of their zooxanthellae and each zooxanthella may lose 50-80% of its photosynthetic pigments. The pale appearance of bleached scleractinian corals and hydrocorals is due to the cnidarian’s calcareous skeleton showing through the translucent tissues (that are nearly devoid of pigmented zooxanthellae). If the stress-causing bleaching is not too severe and if it decreases in time, the affected corals usually regain their symbiotic algae within several weeks or a few months. If zooxanthellae loss is prolonged, i.e. if the stress continues and depleted zooxanthellae populations do not recover, the coral host eventually dies . This boulder of grooved brain coral which I have named “my big happy coral face” is so far doing great on the road to recovery. I have photographed this coral head almost every day since November 18th and will continue to do so until it is completely back to normal so stay tuned for more.
I had a better day than yesterday. I first took my super cool dogs for a two hour adventure. I ended up spending around 30 minutes repairing my bridge I had made a month ago, it’s still standing and doing what it was built for, I just had to add a whole lot of more big rocks today. I also went to the glass beach and went for an hour and half bike ride, so at least I feel like I accomplished a bit more than yesterday! That’s about it, see you again tomorrow, 2011 here we come!! Barry
SITE MAP
CategoriesArchives |
|
