Scripps Oceanography scientists and collaborators provide first-of-its-kind assessment of hypoxia, or low oxygen levels, across 32 coral reef sites around the world.
Scripps Oceanography scientists and collaborators provide first-of-its-kind assessment of hypoxia, or low oxygen levels, across 32 coral reef sites around the world.
A new study is providing an unprecedented examination of oxygen loss on coral reefs around the globe under ocean warming. Led by researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a large team of national and international colleagues, the study captures the current state of hypoxia—or low oxygen levels—at 32 different sites, and reveals that hypoxia is already pervasive on many reefs.
The overall decline of oxygen content across the world’s oceans and coastal waters—a process known as ocean deoxygenation—has been well documented, but hypoxia on coral reefs has been relatively underexplored. Oxygen loss in the ocean is predicted to threaten marine ecosystems globally, though more research is needed to better understand the biological impacts on tropical corals and coral reefs.
The study, published March 16 in the journal Nature Climate Change, is the first to document oxygen conditions on coral reef ecosystems at this scale.
Read more at University of California San Diego
Image: Coral reefs at a study site off Taiping Island, South China Sea. (Photo: Yi Bei Liang via University of California San Diego)
