Future too warm for baby sharks
New research has found as climate change causes the world’s oceans to warm, baby sharks are born smaller, exhausted, undernourished and into environments that are already difficult for them to survi
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au
Prof Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, was awarded with the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology overnight.
Prof Hughes was recognised for his efforts to describe and draw attention to the global loss of fragile coral reef ecosystems as a result of widespread warming, acidification, pollution and disease.
He shares the award with two other marine biologists who have made seminal contributions to our understanding of the world’s oceans, whilst applying this knowledge to protect and conserve marine biodiversity and oceanic ecosystem services in a rapidly changing world.
Prof Hughes’ work has led the implementation of measures to conserve and restore the incomparable resources of coral reefs.
“Coral reefs are not just beautiful places where wealthy people can enjoy a holiday,” Prof Hughes said.
“We should not forget that 400 million people depend on them for their livelihoods and their food security.”
Prof Hughes’ research has focused on the coral bleaching caused by climate change. Bleaching occurs when reefs are exposed to stressors such as warming ocean waters and, if it is severe and prolonged enough, many of the corals will die. It will then take at least a decade to replace them.
His studies show that mass coral bleaching was unknown until the 1980s but since then repeated bleaching episodes have become something of a norm as global temperatures continue to rise.
The Great Barrier Reef has suffered four bleaching events since 1998, two in the consecutive years of 2016 and 2017, causing damage on an unmatched scale. Last year, a paper by Prof Hughes showed that coral larvae births on the Great Barrier Reef slumped by 89% with respect to the historical average, due to the unprecedented dying-off of adult corals after the back-to-back bleaching.
“Although overfishing and pollution also cause deterioration, the greatest threat facing reefs today is without doubt climate change,” affirms Hughes. “And this is not a risk that might affect them in future, but something that is harming them right now.”
Prof Hughes works alongside economists, political scientists and other researchers in the social sciences to develop strategies to combat the reef deterioration being driven by climate change.
“It is still not too late. The window of opportunity to save reefs remains open, but it is closing rapidly, so we have to act now to reduce pollutant emissions and stop wasting time.”
CONTACT
Prof Terry Hughes
Phone: +61 (0)400 720 164
Email: terry.hughes@jcu.edu.au
BACKGROUND
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards, established in 2008, recognise and reward contributions of singular impact in diverse fields of science, technology, social sciences and the humanities that have demonstrably expanded the frontiers of the known world, opening up new paradigms and knowledge fields. Their eight categories are reflective of the knowledge map of the 21st century, encompassing basic research in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, Biology and Biomedicine, Information and Communication Technologies, Humanities and Social Sciences, Economics, Finance and Management, Ecology and Conservation Biology, Climate Change, and, within the arts, the supremely creative realm of music.
A series of papers published by Prof Hughes on coral reefs and the threat of climate change:
New research has found as climate change causes the world’s oceans to warm, baby sharks are born smaller, exhausted, undernourished and into environments that are already difficult for them to survi
A new study shows the coastal protection coral reefs currently provide will start eroding by the end of the century, as the world continues to warm and the oceans acidify. A team of researchers led
A team of scientists led by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) won one of the nation’s top science awards at tonight’s ‘Oscars of Australian science’, the Eureka P
An analytical tool will be used to assess the climate risks facing historic World Heritage sites in Africa—the ruins of two great 13th century ports and the remains of a palace and iron-making indus
Abstract: It is a little over a decade since research commenced into the effects of anthropogenic ocean acidification on marine fishes. In that time, we have learned that projected end-of-century
Abstract: Increased uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has caused the world’s ocean to become more acidic. Different marine habitats are known to have varying ranges of CO2 across mul
Abstract: The Allen Coral Atlas (http://allencoralatlas.org) partnership uses high-resolution satellite imagery, machine learning, and field data to map and monitor the world’s coral reefs at unp
Abstract: Climate change is causing the average surface temperature of the oceans to rise and increasing the frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves. In addition, absorption of additional CO2
Abstract: Marine environments are a concealing medium, where observations of natural fish behavior are challenging. In particular, the geographic and depth distributions of migratory top predators ar
Abstract: Invasive species management can be the the subject of debate in many countries due to conflicting ecological, ethical, economic, and social reasons, especially when dealing with a species s
Abstract: Ocean acidification, the increase in seawater CO2 with all its associated consequences, is relatively well understood in open oceans. In shelf seas such as the Great Barrier Reef, processe
Abstract: The backdrop of legends and movies, the deep sea has always been unfathomable because we had no idea what existed there. Once thought to be barren of life, we now know this couldn’t be
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au