As oceans warm and become more acidic and oxygen-poor, Smithsonian researchers asked how marine life on a Caribbean coral reef copes with changing conditions.
As oceans warm and become more acidic and oxygen-poor, Smithsonian researchers asked how marine life on a Caribbean coral reef copes with changing conditions.
“During my study, water temperatures on reefs in Bocas del Toro, Panama, reached an alarming high of almost 33 degrees C (or 91 degrees F), temperatures that would make most of us sweat or look for air conditioning—options not available to reef inhabitants,” said Noelle Lucey, post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI).
Lucey and her team showed that when temperatures were at their highest, oxygen levels were lowest, and the water was most acidic. These stressful times for reef animals occurred at night when scientists do not typically make observations.
Read more at: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Noelle Lucey collecting sea urchins in the Pacific Ocean (Photo Credit: Maycol Madrid, STRI)
