Acidic Seawater Boosts Elkhorn Coral Reproductive Failure Rate -

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The oceans are changing. You can’t tell by standing on a beach and watching waves roll in, but experiments show that ocean water is becoming more acidic. This process is called “acidification,” and it may mean bad news for animals like the elkhorn coral, which is found throughout the Caribbean Sea.

Elkhorn coral used to be easy to find in shallow water, but now it’s an endangered species. In the last 30 years, many populations of elkhorn coral have collapsed, thanks to disease outbreaks, hurricanes and elevated temperatures. Scientists are working on ways to save the coral, but they have a long way to go. A new study suggests that coral may face yet another threat: In more acidic waters, elkhorn coral are less successful at reproducing sexually.


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Albright and her team observed that for coral living in water with extra carbon dioxide, sperm and egg combined less often than they do in ordinary seawater. Then she observed another obstacle to coral reproduction: Even if a sperm and egg managed to join, they had a hard time getting settled on the reef to grow.

As oceans become more acidic, the elkhorn coral may face increasing problems producing offspring. And it’s just one species. It’s possible that elkhorn coral could evolve and adapt to the changing climate. “One of the limits with this kind of study is that it doesn’t tell you whether there is any potential for evolutionary changes to deal with the new stress,” Steve Gaines told Science News. He is an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and did not work on Albright’s study. \

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http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/the-carbon-dioxide-coral-generation/#more-5220