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P
F
D
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Threats to Coral Reefs

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Using the supplies provided design an experiment to test the effects of acid on shells

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Design an Experiment to Test the Effects of Acid on Seashells

Hypothesis
Identify Variables

Independent/Explanatory (Experimenter Defined)
Dependent/Response (Measured)

Controls
Replication

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Palau

Google Earth Link

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This is Palau

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Florida

Google Earth Link

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This is the Florida Keys

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Palau or the Florida Keys?

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IUCN – International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List

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Least concern = 1�Near Threatened = 4�Vulnerable = 1�Endangered = 0�Critically Endangered = 0

LC

NT

VU

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Least concern = 1�Near Threatened = 0�Vulnerable = 0�Endangered = 2�Critically Endangered = 3

EN

CR

LC

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Coral Bleaching

Image Source: NOAA

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Heat Stress and Endosymbiont Ejection

Zooxanthellae in a coral polyp.

Image source: Maricopa Community College.

Public Domain

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Florida Inshore Shelf

HHMI Biointeractive Coral Reefs and Warming

2001

2002

2010

2009

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Guam – near Palau

2001

2002

2010

2009

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School of Ice in Palau

Initial pH
Bubble CO₂
Final pH
Rate of pH Change

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Woods Hole Oceanogrpahic Insitute

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Ocean Acidification & Corals

A 3-D CT scan reconstruction of a core sample of a coral skeleton. (Anne Cohen Lab, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

. (Mollica et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

Coral polyps—the tiny living soft-bodied coral animals—grow their skeletons upward by stacking bundles of aragonite crystals, one on top of the other. At the same time, they thicken those bundles laterally with additional crystals, which strengthens the skeletons and helps them withstand breakage

Palau’s Rock Islands, the 20-million-year-old backbones of ancient coral reefs, provide a pinball machine’s worth of obstacles for ocean water that trickles through toward the innermost bays. In Nikko Bay, where corals had weathered the ’98 bleaching, water is trapped for months on end.

In these conditions, Cohen knew that the corals themselves could change the water chemistry. To build a skeleton, corals pull calcium and carbonate ions from the water and knit them into sturdy crystals of aragonite. This process is known as calcification. Just as breathing exchanges oxygen for carbon dioxide, slowly spoiling the air in a closed space, calcification draws carbonate out of the water, making the process progressively harder. And the corals are literally breathing, too, which adds more carbon dioxide, which in turn acidifies the water even more. Carbonate gets even harder to come by.

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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Mollica et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease

Foundational species throughout Florida’s Coral Reef continue to succumb to a disease that causes tissue loss, often resulting in death of the entire colony. This photo shows rapid progression of tissue-loss disease across a colony of symmetrical brain coral (Pseudodiploria strigosa). Photo: Brian Reckenbiel/Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

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Major Hurricanes

NOAA Historical Hurricane Tracks

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Florida Coral Reproduction and Restoration

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Share results of your shell experiment