Sugars and bacteria killing off coral reefs

Coral reef deaths have been reduced to several factors including water quality, pollution, global warming, over fishing and habitat-specific diseases attributed.  

Now sugar can be added to the list - possibly even as a big player in some parts of the world, said: "David Klein, PhD, post doctoral researcher at STRI.

In fact, research shows that sugar, or dissolved organic carbon (doc), causing overgrowth of bacteria normally in the coral's overgrow corals off and kill. Studies have shown that bacteria in the coral and help their survival.  

The role of bacteria just barely beginning to understand, the doctor Klein access to excellence in an interview called. It was only a few years ago, researchers discovered that different species of coral communities, each distinct from bacteria living in them, and the bacteria are constantly present.
"It seems like the bacteria most likely part of a symbiotic community living within the coral tissue," he said. Many bacteria within the mucus layer on live coral, although some live in the tissues as well. Studies have shown that some bacteria help to help fix nitrogen nutritional needs of the corals, while others do coral photosynthesis and help supply the energy. It is possible some of these bacteria serves to protect corals from other, harmful bacteria, the doctor said Klein.

However, the doctor Klein in Research shows that the problem occurs when bacteria normally present in coral populations grow out of control. "If the system is out of balance - let's say, adding the sugar too simple - and bacteria begin to grow too quickly, 

killing off coral reefs video

so it breaks down the balance of bacteria is probably interest is growing so quickly that they could actually end up killing. Coral, "he said.
Study in the Caribbean in which a small sample of nearly 400 coral harvesting was done. Each in a separate container in the laboratory doctor Klein was placed. Custom containers were specifically made for this. Different chemicals were added to each sample to see which ones had adverse effects. "When I tested a full set of chemicals commonly found in dirt, with one of the most devastating effects on the corals were simple sugars,

" he said.Follow-up tests showed that normal, healthy corals, bacterial growth rate is controlled. "But when they are around all the sugars they begin to grow out of control to such high levels that they're finally dying," he said. Bacteria may be using all local oxygen causes corals to choke. Even worse, some bacteria may produce toxins, and when the bacteria levels can be abnormally high resistance to coral are toxic and have been poisoned.
Where do I come sugar? Most of the untreated sewage that runs into the ocean, and fertilizers away from land and into water, the doctor said Klein. "Nearly 90% of sewage produced in the Caribbean received no treatment --.. what it just ocean and reefs in many areas close to towns and villages where there are no sewage treatment at all They have no really high level of wastewater treatment simple sugars, "he said.
Role in killing off the algae, corals play. Pollutants containing nitrates and phosphates (commonly found in fertilizers and sewage) to trigger the flow of the ocean and algae population growing more rapidly. Algae is its energy from photosynthesis, glucose is the main product - a simple sugar. Thus, simple sugars produced by the algae to grow too much bacteria, which in turn kills off coral add.

killing off coral reefs videos

"And as the corals die, there is more space for more algae and algae, and more sugar there, and the cycle is completed is really bad," Klein said the doctor. In the past two decades, there has been a shift from coral dominated to algal dominated in the Caribbean that many mirrors human population growth in coastal villages, and pollutants associated with increased fishing