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- Researchers surveyed 29 warships at Bikini Atoll and Chuuk Lagoon and located that they hosted as much as a 3rd of coral genera discovered on pure reefs in neighboring areas.
- This research has led researchers to ask a controversial query: Can these sorts of shipwrecks act as biodiversity havens for corals?
- Whereas the research doesn’t present a solution to this query, the authors say this concept ought to be explored.
- Local weather change is among the greatest threats to coral reefs since rising temperatures may cause widespread bleaching occasions.
On Might 25, 1946, america detonated the primary underwater nuclear bomb at Bikini Atoll within the Marshall Islands to see what sort of harm it might trigger. This explicit bomb, recognized by the codename “Baker,” sank eight warships that had been intentionally positioned across the atoll, and produced an enormous mushroom cloud that inundated the ocean and sky.
Whereas Bikini Atoll continues to be radioactive, the encircling ocean hasn’t change into the nuclear wasteland one would possibly anticipate. Many coral species have proved to be resilient to this large-scale anthropogenic disturbance, and corals have additionally settled on the sunken warships which were rusting on the seafloor for greater than 70 years.
In 2018, ecologist Greg Asner and a staff of divers started a survey of the coral on the warships at Bikini Atoll in addition to the sunken Japanese fleet of Truk (Chuuk) Lagoon in Micronesia, in an effort to reply a query: may these reefs act as biodiversity havens? This query has change into significantly related as the worldwide oceans warmth up on account of local weather change, inflicting widespread coral bleaching from which many pure reefs are unable to recuperate.
Asner and his staff undertook a sequence of deep dives to survey the stony coral species on 29 warships at Bikini Atoll and Chuuk Lagoon, most of them at a depth of about 55 meters (180 ft). This depth meant that the divers may solely keep underwater for brief intervals of time, so as an alternative of figuring out the corals whereas underwater, they took 8K video and analyzed the footage on land. This identification course of was an arduous activity, Asner stated, since many coral species look very related.
In a brand new paper, Asner and his colleagues reported that Bikini had about 67% of the coral genera discovered on close by pure reefs, whereas Chuuk had 72% of the genera of pure reefs. The staff additionally recognized 34 coral genera at Bikini and 51 genera at Chuuk. The larger the shipwreck, the extra biodiversity they discovered.
“What was stunning in regards to the ships wasn’t the full variety of corals … but it surely was the range,” Asner informed Mongabay. “What number of totally different corals had made their properties on these shipwrecks was the surprising half.”
Examine co-author Robin Martin, a technical diver who helped orchestrate the deep dives wanted to finish these surveys, stated there was extra richness at shallower depths, however that there was nonetheless a variety of species additional down.
“It’s actually wonderful to be actually deep and nonetheless discover totally different species all around the ships,” Martin informed Mongabay.
Corals which can be positioned deeper within the ocean are extra protected against marine warmth waves that may trigger bleaching, Asner stated. Nevertheless, there’s debate as as to if deeper coral reefs will stay unscathed because the oceans warmth up.
So can synthetic reefs just like the warships at Bikini Atoll and Chuuk Lagoon present “havens” for coral reefs within the face of local weather change, and even assist corals migrate to extra liveable elements of the ocean as temperatures rise? The authors be aware that this can be a controversial query, however one which ought to be explored.
“We don’t need to go overboard, but it surely’s a neat discovering,” Asner stated. “And it provides us some sense that there’s extra on the market than we all know.”
In keeping with the paper, synthetic reefs have sprung up round some 2,000 shipwrecks world wide, and the coral variety on these ships is “nearly unknown.” Asner stated this research is an element of a bigger undertaking that identifies coral communities beforehand unknown to science.
Maria Beger, a coral reef ecologist and conservation scientist on the College of Leeds, who was not concerned on this research, however has studied coral reefs in Bikini and Chuuk, stated this analysis is thrilling since little or no is understood about coral reef habitats on this deeper band of water, generally known as mesophotic coral ecosystems, and in addition about coral reefs within the Micronesian area basically.
Nevertheless, she stated the query of whether or not shipwrecks like those discovered at Bikini Atoll and Chuuk Lagoon can act as secure havens could also be “the fallacious query to ask.”
“The query is, why do we’d like these secure havens on a shipwreck? Why can’t we’ve our biodiversity on the reef in Chuuk or in Bikini?” Beger informed Mongabay. “And let’s not neglect that these reefs and people atolls … have symbolism for struggle and nuclear testing and shifting individuals off their native islands.”
Whereas Beger stated the shipwrecks at Bikini and Chuuk are nice dive websites that host an necessary quantity of biodiversity, we should always at the start be taking a look at methods to guard the pure reefs. “We are able to’t see shipwrecks as a get-out clause for actual reef safety,” she stated.
Banner picture: Divers look at the corals on shipwrecks at Bikini Atoll. Picture courtesy of Greg Asner.
Citations:
Asner, G. P., Giardina, S. F., Balzotti, C., Drury, C., Hopson, S., & Martin, R. E. (2022). Are sunken warships biodiversity havens for corals? Range, 14(2), 139. doi:10.3390/d14020139
Richards, Z. T., Beger, M., Pinca, S., & Wallace, C. C. (2008). Bikini atoll coral biodiversity resilience 5 a long time after nuclear testing. Marine Air pollution Bulletin, 56(3), 503-515. doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2007.11.018
Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a workers author for Mongabay. Comply with her on Twitter @ECAlberts.
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