Ocean Pollution and Its Impact on Coral Reefs
Humans now dominate most of the earth's ecosystems, both land and water. Between one-third and one-half of the land surface has been modified by human activity and the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased by nearly 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (Vitousek et al., 1997). Species have been driven to extinction, particularly birds. At the present, scientists are even beginning to believe that human action might extinguish some marine species that spend their whole lives in the ocean (Malakoff, 1997). Multiple assaults on the ocean affect everything from fish to coral reefs. The intention in this analysis is to explore how ocean pollution affects coral reefs and potential ways to provide protection or restoration.
Coral reefs are actually a living organism, beginning their evolutionary process approximately 200 million to 400 million years ago. They cover approximately 231,660 square miles of the ocean. Coral reefs are colonies of small animals, called polyps, attached to the skeletons of earlier polyps. These polyps are akin to anemones, with columnar bodies surrounded by tentacles. They live in a calcium-based cup which develops from their own secretions. They also have their own symbiont algae which help them process nutrients. Essentially, coral reefs are slow-growing colonies which create vast ecosystems that are thousands of years old (Hinrichsen, 1997).
There are basically three types of coral reefs, which are generally located in warm tropical and subtropical waters. These reefs are near-shore fringing reefs, barrier reefs, and circular or u-shaped atolls, which surround a lagoon. Growth of the colonies, and the reef, varies from approximately .04 inch per year to 8 inches per year (Hinrichsen, 1997).
Coral colonies do not exist on their own. They are a central component of a complicated ecosystem, includin...