"Never Waste A Good Crisis"

  • Oldest living marine organisms?
    Friday, March 27, 2009 - 14:16

    morrisp

    From Science Daily (25 March 2009):

    Researchers from Lawrence Livermore, Stanford University and the University of California at Santa Cruz have determined that two groups of Hawaiian deep-sea corals are far older than previously recorded.

    Using the Lab's Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, LLNL researchers Tom Guilderson and Stewart Fallon used radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of Geradia sp., or gold coral, and specimens of the deep-water black coral, Leiopathes sp. The longest lived in both species was 2,740 years and 4,270 years, respectively. At more than 4,000 years old, the deep-water black coral is the oldest living skeletal-accreting marine organism known.

    Read more about it (reference below):

    E. Brendan Roark, Thomas P. Guilderson, Robert B. Dunbar, Stewart J. Fallon, and David A. Mucciarone. Extreme longevity in proteinaceous deep-sea corals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0810875106

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  • Welcome!
    Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 19:19

    morrisp

    Reef-community5b

    Image of reef off southern coast of Puerto Rico (near La Parguera) taken by Ernesto Weil, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez.

    ~~~~~

    Welcome to the blog companion to CoralMicrobes.org! 

    We'll be using this space to update you on site happenings, to introduce you to those who participate in the site, and to write about what we find interesting about corals - which is just about everything, although I'm sure there'll be a bias towards all things microbial.  Also, please don't hesitate to email us at info@coralmicrobes.org if there's something out there that you'd like us to add to this site.  We'd love to hear from you.

    We'll be asking Matt, our web and machine learning guru, to introduce himself in a few days, and to write an update regarding the site - a 'where we're at' and 'where we're going kinda thing'.  I know, I know - you are all sitting on the edge of your seats! 

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  • Coral bleaching observed off of the South Carolina coast
    Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 14:57

    macook

    From a 10 March post over at Dive News:

    The wreck of the Freddy Day just off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, usually sports coral so vibrant that some divers say it is better than in the Bahamas. However, divers have been reporting for the last few summers bleaching during the summer said Sally Robinson of Charleston Scuba. During the last two summers they also noted whitening on deeper wrecks too...

    "It's scary. It's really kind of a shock," she said. "This is what we were seeing in the (Florida) Keys in the 1970s."

    The divers observations are the first real report that coral bleaching is happening in South Carolina. This has launched a NOAA outbreak investigation procedure.

    Robinson believes all the signs are there for a habitat in trouble. She says that the water during the summer is considerably warmer year to year. More tropical fish are in the waters year round, such as queen and blue angels, butterfly fish.

    "A lot of what-ifs have to be answered before researchers can tell what might be bleaching corals off South Carolina", said Cheryl Woodley, coral health and disease program manager at NOAA's Fort Johnson complex. "But bleaching is a sign that something is going on", she said.

    Original source:  Post and Courier

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