The Impact of Climate Change on Coral Reef Ecosystems

摘要: Human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and changing land use have dramatically altered atmospheric concentration greenhouse gases carbon dioxide methane. These changes resulted in global warming ocean acidification, both which pose serious threats to coral reef ecosystems through increased thermal stress acidity well declining carbonate ion concentrations. Observed impacts on reefs include mass bleaching, calcification rates, a range other subtle yet fundamentally important physiological ecological processes. There is little evidence that reef-building corals organisms will be able adapt these leading conclusion become rare globally by middle current century. Constraining growth atmosphere reducing local stresses overfishing water quality, however, holds considerable hope for avoiding this gloomy future reefs. Given importance livelihoods millions people, actions must pursued matter extreme urgency.