Coral Bleaching the Great Barrier Reef.

The Great Barrier Reef which is made up of around 2,900 individual reefs along with 900 islands having the length over 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) has an area of almost 133,000 square miles (344,400 square kilometers ).

The figures explain the reason why it is the largest reef in the world.

The reef is  situated in the Coral Sea, near to Queensland in northeast Australia and the only place in the whole earth which can be detected from the outer space.

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest structure made by the living creatures named coral polyps. In 1981, it was nominated as a World Heritage Site.

The Great Barrier Reef is a habitation of diversity of life including more than 1,500 fish species, thirty species of whales, the dwarf minke whale, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, the endangered dugongs, clownfish, red bass, red-throat emperor, and forty-nine species mass spawn, numerous species of snapper, coral trout, sea snake and many more.

According to BBC News, 2nd October, 2012 the Great Barrier Reef has already bleached over half of its coral cover in the last 27 years.

The results show that coral cover declined from 28.0% to 13.8% between 1985 and 2012.

A research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal claimed that after analyzing on the condition of 217 coral reefs.

The outcomes disclosed that coral cover from 28% to 13.8% – an average of 0.53% a year which done a total loss of 50.7% in the past 27-year period.

The main reasons of the coral bleaching are storms, an outbreak of coral-feeding starfish and climate change. The observations are done over 2,000 surveys of 214 reefs between 1985 and 2012.

The Great Barrier Reef forms the most productive ecosystem.

But the reef faces the bleaching problem for the last several years due to the climate change, pollution, outbreak of crown-of-thorns starfish and fishing, shipping accidents, oil spills, and tropical cyclones, Skeletal Eroding Band, a disease of bony corals.

The greatest peril to the Great Barrier Reef is to be the climate change like ocean warming.

Mass coral bleaching had already been occurred in the summer of 1998, 2002 and 2006. Pollution and declining water quality are the other crucial danger faced by the Great Barrier Reef.

The flood water brought more than 90% of this pollution through farm runoff including overgrazing, excessive fertilizer, and pesticide. The crown-of-thorns starfish kills the coral polyps which are the main reef building ingredients.

According to a study by the RRC (Reefs Research Centre) an outbreak of the crown-of-thorns starfish made a loss of 66% of live coral, in 2000.

Fishing and shipping are also threating to the coral life.

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The effects of Coral bleaching on fish communities and the effect is so clear especially with the rise in global warming that has seen rise of temperatures hence the death of the most essential organisms especially s the Microscopic algae that has a symbiotic relationship with the coral reefs.

The effects of Coral bleaching on fish communities has seen hundreds of fish species being affected especially in their structure of their communities. Some of the major effects of coral bleaching were experienced in the 1997-1998 El Niño especially in the Indian Ocean. This article describes some of the researched effects of coral breaching on fish species.

There have been changes in the size, biodiversity and composition of fish communities following the decline in coral reefs. Since most of fish have depend on the coral reefs for food and bleeding grounds, decline of the coral reefs has seen more fish dies and even their eggs being easily destroyed by their predators.

Coral bleaching has been accused of disturbing the structure of the fish surrounding. This is because as the coral reefs die they become over populated with algae which dominate the previously coral reefs dominated zones. This has an effect on fish since they have to migrate to other grounds to look for foods as well as bleeding grounds.

Effects of Coral bleaching on fish communities.

In addition a lot of fish may die as a lot of the effects of Coral bleaching on fish communities grows out of control. As mentioned earlier coral reef bleaching leads to either death or weakening of the coral reefs. In turn they are unable to control the amount of carbon dioxide levels in the water where fish due to lack of oxygen which forms a major component for survival in the water. Again many fish may die due to deprivation of air especially if out of water. This is because many fish moves in swarms of thousand of fishes and given that the ocean water is not stable there is lots of water waves most of may be swept to the dry land hence deprived of their medium for oxygen.

The change of environment especially after the death of the coral reefs exposes the fish to more dangers. There some species of algae family that attacks the fish infecting them with poison that halts the normal operation of the fish thus killing thousands of fish.

More so, the change of the structure that does not favor the fish since some predators may invade the region invading on the fish.

From the above description, it is obvious evident that coral bleaching has endangered the lives of many fish species. Indeed there is much worry that more of fish may be affected. This would mean decline of economy as a result of decreased fishing activities as well as tourist activities in the regions that are well habited by coral reefs. Though various organizations, governments of the affected countries and some individuals have been concerned, coral bleaching should be announced an international disaster and educate people on some of the factors that contribute to coral bleaching especially global warming.

People should also be made aware of the value of the coral reefs to their lives and lives of other organisms.

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• Coral Reef Bleaching – Death of Marine Species
• Coral Reefs Bleaching to Death