Coral reefs in the Gulf of Eilat have been proven particularly resistant to global warming, rising water temperatures and bleaching events that are crippling their counterparts elsewhere around the world.
Coral reefs in the Gulf of Eilat have been proven particularly resistant to global warming, rising water temperatures and bleaching events that are crippling their counterparts elsewhere around the world. But the findings of a long-term study by an international team of marine and data scientists, recently published in the journal Global Change Biology, confirm a different threat to this coral refuge in southern Israel: massive urban development near the Gulf coastline is taking a devastating toll on the local marine environment.
For an entire year researchers examined how and if urbanization is disrupting natural biorhythms, which are responsible for coral metabolism, growth and reproduction cycles, and whether urbanization could be an overlooked contributing factor to global coral decline.
Dr. Yaeli Rosenberg with Prof. Oren Levy, Director of the Marine Lab at Bar-Ilan's Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, led the team, which included Dr. Shahar Alon (Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Engineering); Prof. Aldo Shemesh's lab (Weizmann Institute of Science), the Bioinformatic Services Unit (University of Haifa), Prof. Chris Voolstra's lab (University of Konstanz, Germany), and Prof. David Miller's lab (ARC Centre of Excellence for James Cook University in Queensland, Australia).
Two sites in the Gulf of Eilat, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, were sampled -- one in close vicinity to the city of Eilat, and one further away. Like any city Eilat emits various forms of chemical, light, hormonal, and noise pollution that can be harmful to marine environments.
Read more at Bar-Ilan University
Photo Credit: Sabine_999 via Pixabay
