Cancel the coral-bleaching apocalypse as it looks like life has somehow found a way to adapt to temperature increases, you know, just like life on the planet has done for the past 500 million years or so:
Good news! https://t.co/XWuixkW7s0
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) December 16, 2018
Life finds a way:
After ocean temperatures surged in 2016 around the Great Barrier Reef, causing severe damage, researchers found that the corals that survived were more resistant to another period of extreme warmth the following year.https://t.co/6RKpFpjrVU
— Earthwatch (@earthwatch_org) December 16, 2018
But there’s a “price” for this resilience, of course:
The Great Barrier Reef is becoming more heat-resistant—at a price https://t.co/wmk2RKaoQr pic.twitter.com/wioAdHlTaS
— Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) December 16, 2018
We’re willing to bet that the fish will figure this one out just like the corals did. From Gizmodo:
While it’s heartening that not all corals are equally doomed in our warming world, it’s also crucial to note that not all corals play the same ecological role. As Hughes and his colleagues noted in a paper out earlier this year, the Great Barrier Reef is fast becoming a “highly altered, degraded system” as the corals that provide the most nooks and crannies to shelter reef fish vanish.
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Oh, and in other unexpected coral news, scientists discovered the organisms thriving at much deeper depths which means there’s a vast store of live animals available to replenish those that have been killed off at the surface:
Not sure what to make of this but seems interesting: "Numerous Great Barrier Reef coral species are found living in the deep ocean" https://t.co/gDgUO3DMyZ
— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) December 15, 2018
Science, unsettled. Again.
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