The warmest seas are at greatest risk for the development and spread of the disease: let’s find out what it is.
It is a study byUniversity of New South Wales in Australia to sound the alarm: these are the warmest seas on earth and a specific one illness what researchers are predicting could spread like wildfire and suddenly in the next 75 years approximately with particularly negative consequences for the ecosystem and the biosphere.
The study was published in the journal ecology letters and focuses on infections that fungi and bacteria to corals and too barrier reef due to the rise in temperature of the seas and oceans. And to understand the speed of development of infections and therefore to create an accurate, plausible and probable prediction, the researchers analyzed more than 100 studies created in the last quarter centuryby comparing them.
It has become clear that over the past 25 years, the infections affecting corals have caused diseases of various kinds tripled. And that’s because overheating of the waters and thus the current climate crisis, which leads to an ever more massive formation of cyanobacteria, sulphide-oxidizing and sulphate-reducing bacteria as well as to the killing of algae that live in symbiosis with the coral colonies.
Scientists’ predictions: the possible scenario for 2100
According to the researchers, human activities have an extremely significant impact on the situation and its very likely deterioration: if indeed the production of greenhouse gases By the end of the century, the percentage of coral colonies that will only be affected by the disease caused by the increase in infections will continue to increase at the current rate will exceed 75%compared to today’s 9.92%, which, as I said, is already three times as many diseased colonies compared to the last years of the last millennium.
Researchers predict that by 2100, coral disease growth will exceed 75% of colonies – BioPianeta.it
“Coral disease – said the doctor Samatha BurkeLead author of the study – is a a major cause of coral death worldwide and reef decline, and our models predict it will get worse.” He continued, “Some oceans in particular are more at risk, but it’s difficult for us to say whether this is solely due to warming ocean temperatures or in combination with many others.” stressors that corals have to contend with”.
So for now, researchers think they can predict with certainty that the effects will materialize But that it is currently not possible to determine exactly how and with what differences, for example, the Pacific Ocean will suffer differently than the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean. Without a doubt, however, it is another, unfortunately another, element of the climate crisis since then urgent and worldwide.
Disable push notifications