Word: corals
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...shrinking throughout this decade. The declines are not simply a result of overfishing, but also of practices that destroy the ocean-floor habitats that feed and protect schools of commercial fish. Factory trawlers scare up schools by dragging heavy chains over the sea bottom, uprooting aquatic plants and killing coral and shellfish. Migrating fish, such as salmon, are caught before they can spawn, thus killing their progeny as well. This one-two punch has contributed to the endangerment of many species, even those that are not pursued for their food value. The good news? Once the damaging practices end, depleted...
...includes Maria Victoria Arias, a Miami lawyer married to Hugh Rodham, the First Lady's brother; and wealthy businessman Paul Cejas, who occasionally stays overnight at the White House. Arias telephones Hillary frequently and often sends Clinton clippings from Florida newspapers. In regular meetings at the Colonnade Hotel in Coral Gables or at Little Havana's Versailles Restaurant, the core group plans strategy and prepares appeals, which are sent by way of private notes to Clinton's top political aides. "When an issue comes up, we try to get a consensus and present a united front," says core-group member...
Unhappily for reefs, humans upset the balance between corals and their competitors in many ways. Consider the erosion that accompanies deforestation and agriculture. No longer restrained by tree roots, tons of soil laden with nitrogen and phosphate washes into rivers and then sweeps into the sea, forming a muddy plume that may be hundreds of miles long. As this nutrient-rich water flows over a reef, it stimulates the growth of all kinds of algae--including the microscopic diatoms and dinoflagellates that nourish such reef animals as the crown-of-thorns starfish. In recent years hordes of these coral-devouring...
...what has brought about the epidemics of "bleaching" that have turned coral reefs white across the Pacific Ocean and parts of the Caribbean? Scientists have known for some time that various kinds of stress can cause corals to expel their zooxanthellae. Since it is the zooxanthellae that give coral colonies their rich coloration, their loss causes entire reefs to turn white. The stress that caused the recent bleachings, scientists say, was a seasonal spike in seawater temperatures. But other sources of stress, such as overfishing and nutrient overload, may have made the corals and their symbiotic friends unusually sensitive...
What if several decades from now global warming causes such swings in temperature to occur more often? That possibility alarms marine scientists, because bleaching--the coral equivalent of running a fever--can be fatal. In 1983 a particularly severe bleaching episode killed 95% of the corals off the Galapagos Islands. Global warming could also trigger more intense hurricanes, scientists fear. And while healthy reefs would no doubt recuperate from the pummeling, sick reefs might not. "What we worry about," says Smithsonian marine biologist Nancy Knowlton, "is a threshold effect, when so much stress piles up that all of a sudden...