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Coral reefs are dying around the world. [1] Human activities have substantial impact on coral reefs, contributing to their worldwide decline. [2] Damaging activities encompass coral mining, pollution (both organic and non-organic), overfishing, blast fishing, as well as the excavation of canals and access points to islands and bays.
Soldiers' Home Reef was formed during the Silurian period of the Paleozoic Era, about 400 million years ago, when Wisconsin lay under a shallow tropical sea.Beneath that sea, ancient corals constructed the reef where trilobites, cephalopods, brachiopods, pelmatozoans, bivalves, and bryozoans lived and were eventually preserved as limestone.
Coral reefs are important buffers between the land and water and help to reduce storm damage and coastal erosion. [2] They provide employment, recreational opportunities and they are a major source of food for coastal communities. [2] It is estimated that $375 billion dollars come from ecosystem services provided by coral reefs each year. [3]
A major concern for marine biologists is the collapse of coral reef ecosystems. [40]). An effect of global climate change is the rising sea levels which can lead to reef drowning or coral bleaching. [40] Human activity, such as fishing, mining, deforestation, etc., serves as a threat for coral reefs by affecting the niche of the coral reefs.
The Caribbean Coral Reefs – Status Report 1970–2012, states that coral decline may be reduced or even reversed. For this overfishing needs to be stopped, especially fishing on species key to coral reefs, such as parrotfish. Direct human pressure on coral reefs should also be reduced and the inflow of sewage should be minimised.
Warm-water coral reefs are very sensitive to global warming and ocean acidification. Coral reefs provide a habitat for thousands of species. They provide ecosystem services such as coastal protection and food. But 70–90% of today's warm-water coral reefs will disappear even if warming is kept to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).
Huge stretches of coral reef around the world are turning a ghostly white this year amid record warm ocean temperatures. On Monday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ...
Significant habitat loss is occurring particularly in seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and coral reefs, all of which are in global decline due to human disturbances. Coral reefs are among the more productive and diverse ecosystems on the planet, but one-fifth of them have been lost in recent years due to anthropogenic disturbances.