And the Sea

hairymouthfuls asked: Just heard on the BBC today that if the acidification of the oceans (by CO2) continues at present levels, one third of 'marine life' will have perished by the end of the century.

Now that right there is a point of contention, my friend. It’s generally held to be true by most, and I do somewhat subscribe to it. But I will say that I don’t in the typical manner; my belief of what is happening varies quite considerably from conventional science based on what I’ve observed in terms of reef biology and the innate resilience thereof.

Do I think reefs are in pretty bad shape? You betchya. Do I consider it to be simply as a result of CO2? Not particularly - CO2 itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and especially not in a eutrophic marine environment where there is sufficient photosynthesis to absorb much of what’s being input - but on the grander scale, there’s a lot of bad which is coming about for one reason or another.

Temperature increase, acidification, and various other factors can only contribute so much, and personally that’s where I deviate from conventional wisdom - in what I’ve observed, providing everything is in check, those two alone do not contribute to mortality. There’s always some other key element at play which exacerbates those; bacteria, parasite, and sediment are three of the biggies.

We’ll see extinction on a pretty grand scale, only 1% of the oceans being reef guarantees this as there’s much less area for them to be productive than other segments of the ocean (and having ~25% of all marine species to boot). Other aspects of the seas aren’t quite as adversely impacted by it all, relatively speaking the more open waters are much more capable of handling these things.

One of my hopes is to study this in greater detail. I know coral and various other sessile invertebrates are incredibly adaptable to environmental flux, moreso than we give them credit for… the trick is finding what else is making this truth no longer valid in the real world.

The beautiful thing with ecosystems though, they’re pretty good at self-regulating. We’re already seeing some interesting things happen by these to deal with changing environments. Two of the most interesting cases of note are the progression of reefs away from the equator, and the rise of “Urban” corals - hybrids which are much more tolerant of natural extremes than their parents.

Things is bad, but nature’s been bad for a long time. This is worse than before, but if nothing else, evolutionary drive will be kicked into overdrive.