Word: gorgonia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...list of climate change's victims, you can now add the suffering Gorgonia. Scientists at Spain's Higher Council of Scientific Investigation (CSIC) have discovered that lengthening summers in the Mediterranean are having dire effects on the familiar fan-shaped coral, as well as on many other kinds of marine invertebrates. In a study published April 14 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they argue that for the Gorgonia and its kin, longer summers equal nothing short of mass death...
What's new is that the CSIC study, co-authored by Marta Ribes and Rafel Coma, suggests the phenomenon doesn't just occur on land. By focusing on the Gorgonia, one of the most emblematic and significant corals in the Mediterranean, Ribes and Coma have found that seas have their seasons, too - and with equally dire effects. Between 1974 and 2006, summer conditions in the Mediterranean expanded by 40%, meaning the season has grown on average one day longer each year. For the Gorgonia and other sensitive suspension invertebrates - the term refers to the organisms' habit of feeding on particles...
...Gorgonia, which can grow up to 1 m (3 ft) tall, the problem stems from its own seasonally affected energy resources. Suspension invertebrates, which include sponges as well as corals, require more energy to breath in warmer temperatures. And that, in turn, means they need more food. But - grim irony - warmer temperatures also stratify the water, making it harder for edible organisms like plankton, which prefers cold water, to get to the animals who eat them. For suspension invertebrates, the result is a food shortage that occurs precisely at the moment when they need more food. (See pictures...
...chain reaction that is one more piece of evidence of global warming's devastating impact. Coupled with other climate change phenomena, like the boom in jellyfish off the coast of Spain and the appearance of a new, ecosystem-upsetting species of shrimp near Tunisia, Gorgonia mortality looks to be remaking the sea into a very different place...
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