Coral reefs protect coasts, provide habitat and generate billions for fishing and tourism. But today these reefs are at risk. Coral taxonomist Zoe Richards discusses the state of coral reefs and how we can best protect them.
Coral reefs protect our coasts from storms, provide habitats for diverse marine species and generate billions of dollars for the fishing and tourism industries. Unfortunately, recent mass coral bleaching events have put these spectacular ecosystems at risk.
In this episode, coral taxonomist Dr Zoe Richards discusses the state of coral reefs and how we can best protect them in the future.
We want to sincerely thank Jessica for helping make The Future Of what it is, and wish her all the best as she takes some time off to welcome her first child into the world. David will be back next week.
Email thefutureof@curtin.edu.au.
Curtin University supports academic freedom of speech. The views expressed in The Future Of podcast may not reflect those of the university.
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You can read the full transcript for the episode here.
Jess: This is The Future Of, where experts share their vision of the future and how their work is helping shape it for the better. I'm Jess Morrison...
David: And I'm David Blayney.
Jess: Coral reefs protect our coastlines from storms, provide habitats for diverse marine species and generate billions of dollars for the fishing and tourism industries. Unfortunately, recent mass coral bleaching events have put the future of these spectacular ecosystems at risk. To discuss this topic, with us today is coral taxonomist, Dr Zoe Richards. Thanks for joining us, Zoe.
Dr Zoe Richards: Thank you! It's my pleasure.
Jess: Firstly, what is a coral taxonomist?
Dr Zoe Richards: A taxonomist is a biologist, a biologist who classifies organisms into the different species, genera or families, based on their origins and who they're related to. So, for me, I work on corals. I'm scuba diving, I'm looking at corals and I'm identifying those corals. To make the identification, I need to look at their morphology. So, their skeletal structure and also their molecules. The data that I collect is used in a range of ways. It's used to identify species that are resilient, identify species that are different from each other, that need to be described. And also the data is used for conservation projects such as marine park planning. We also use it for ICUN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) red list assessments, for example, which we did in 2008 for the first time and we found that one-third of the corals were in elevated categories of threat, meaning that they were highly threatened with extinction. So, that's all based on the type of data that a coral taxonomist generates.
Jess: You get to go and scuba dive some of the most beautiful places around Australia, by the sounds of it.
Dr Zoe Richards: Yes! We spend a lot of time in the water. The corals are quite similar to each other. It takes a long time to get your eye in and to be able to identify the different species. I've been fortunate to do that around the world, in different parts of the Pacific, Indian Ocean. So, it's a body of work. It's ongoing.
David: Sorry to do a bit of a double take. That's a significant amount of coral to be at risk.
Dr Zoe Richards: Yes. There's incredibly threatened corals. The only other taxa that has a higher number of species that are threatened with extinction are frogs. So in the marine system, the corals are exceptionally threatened.
David: Presumably they're not just nice to look at and act as sets for animated feature films. What would a world without coal reefs look like?
Jess: Why should we care?
David: Why should we care? I can see them in my Pixar movies, with Nemo.
Dr Zoe Richards: Okay, well let's start with 'Why should we care?' To me, they're such magnificent places. They're places for exploration, adventure and scientific discovery. But also they're really important because they're a source of food for over a billion people, they're providing jobs, income to local economies, from fishing, recreation, tourism. The Australian tourism industry is worth about $30 million annually. The coral reefs are also biodiversity hotspots. Even though coral reefs only cover about one per cent of the ocean floor, they contain about 25 per cent of the marine life, so they're incredibly diverse. And that's generally because there's a whole heap of different microhabitats that enable lots of different species to live together. The coral reefs also spawn nursery grounds for a whole heap of fish that are important for the commercial and recreational fishing industries. They protect coastlines from storms. And you know, something people don't think about is that they're a really important source of new medicines and biotechnological opportunities. Every year, hundreds of new compounds are derived out of marine taxa such as sponges, like anti-inflammatories, antibiotics.
Jess: Sunscreen?
Dr Zoe Richards: Sunscreen is a beautiful example because corals have a natural mucus. There's a variety of companies at the moment that are trying to synthesise the compounds out of the coral mucus to make UV filters. These types of filters can be used in paints, sunglasses, sunscreens. The potential for technologies and medicines out of the marine and the coral reef organisms is just exceptional.
Jess: You were saying before the high rate of coral, which is quite highly endangered. What is the state of the coral reefs here in Western Australia? What is the future of these coral reefs here?
Dr Zoe Richards: At the moment, we do have a mixed bag here in Western Australia. The 2016 bleaching event, which impacted the Great Barrier Reef terribly, which the listeners may have heard about in the news, also had some big impacts from that offshore in Western Australia at Scott Reef. That reef was completely devastated by the 2016 bleaching event. Scott Reef is an offshore atoll north of Broome. So, we have three beautiful atoll reef systems offshore from northern Western Australia. We have Ashmore, then Scott Reef, then the Rowley Shoals. So Scott Reef in the middle was badly impacted, but contrasting to that is Ashmore Reef and the Rowley Shoals. They survived without much impact. It's really quite interesting why Scott Reef in particular was so badly devastated by that bleaching event. But the neighbouring atolls survived–.
David: Why's that?
Dr Zoe Richards: We're trying to work that out at the moment. The Australian Institute of Marine Science in particular is working on that. They think there's some current patterns, currents that have caused the hot water to sit above Scott Reef for an extended period of time. There's variety of hypotheses, but no one can answer exactly what's going on at Scott Reef at the moment. When we come in shore, there's also a range of different responses that are happening. In the Kimberley, there's some patches of reef that were bleaching and other patches of reef that we're completely robust to the 2016 bleaching event and they appear to be not impacted at all. Coming down the coastline through the Pilbara, things were surviving quite well there. Get to Ningaloo; they did okay in 2016 but in 2011 there was another bleaching event that really devastated Ningaloo Reef. So, there's a really varied range of responses across the Western Australian coastline.
Jess: For those listeners who aren't super familiar with bleaching, can you give us a brief description of what that actually is for a coral reef?
Dr Zoe Richards: Sure. So the corals are generally really colourful and inside their tissue are zooxanthellae – symbiotic organisms that derive energy from the sun, just like a plant, so they live inside the coral tissue. When the water stays too warm for too long, the coral heats up and the zooxanthellae inside the tissues become stressed out. So they are freaking out and the coral expels them. When they're expelled, the coral loses its colour and turns white. And this basically means the coral is really stressed and in fact it's starving to death. If the coral stays stressed like that for a period of time, an extended period of time for a couple of weeks, for example, it will completely starve and then it will die. That's coral bleaching. If you get a minor event, the coral could bleach and recover. But if you get a major event like 2016 at Scott Reef, on the Great Barrier Reef, corals did not recover because the stress event was just too extreme and lasted too long.
David: And presumably we can't just plant more coral like you can plant a tree.
Dr Zoe Richards: There are restoration efforts going on around the world and it's growing in popularity in Australia, in particularly on the Great Barrier Reef. But you need your source material from somewhere. Where are you going to collect these corals from? And if you're going to just plant these corals out to somewhere that is previously bleached, why are these ones going to survive the next bleaching? Because you've got the same genetic stock. This is where we're looking. There might be another event of similar magnitude with the thermal stress in the water. What we really need to find are these pockets of reef where they have an increased thermal tolerant and they have the ability to survive these events. So, there's a bit of effort going on around the world to look for these climate refuges and pockets of thermally tolerant corals.
Jess: And then perhaps planting those in areas where there have been mass coral bleachings and the reef is essentially dead? I suppose I'm just looking to what the future is of restoring these dead areas.
Dr Zoe Richards: That is a downstream application that a lot of people are working on and thinking through at the moment. Right now we need more data to underpin decisions in that space. But that idea of assisted evolution and translocating corals. So a strong thermally tolerant genotype from the Kimberley for example; is it feasible to move those to the Great Barrier Reef or move larvae from the Kimberley to the Great Barrier Reef. To make those decisions, we need to know: is the Kimberley system, for example, and the Great Barrier Reef naturally connected to each other? Are there 'babies' from the Kimberley naturally going to the Great Barrier Reef, anyway? Because if they are, then it makes it possible. But if they're completely separate ecosystems, it becomes slightly dangerous to start introducing corals from another region to a new place because you may also be introducing new diseases or other problematic things might happen, like the corals that you've introduced become dominant and take over that location and start outbreeding and taking over. The genetic diversity then becomes simplified and you've lost all your original inhabitants and the diversity that they held. It's quite a controversial subject, but it's certainly becoming more and more popular and it's being explored at the moment. So there'll be many more decisions and opportunities in that space in the years to come.
Jess: So, you said you still need to collect a lot more data, but, other than transplanting coral, what else is being looked at to save these reefs?
Dr Zoe Richards: We're just trying to understand at the moment the ability for corals to adapt. Can they adapt and what sort of timescale can that happen on and can they inherit thermally tolerant genes from their parents? If we find these pockets of thermally resistant corals, then we need to look at them genetically and unlock their secrets and work out why they are surviving. Because that can really tell us a lot of information that may be relevant to other locations; other locations are struggling now, but possibly in time they will also be able to adapt. If we can just understand the molecular mechanisms, that can give us a lot of insight into the future of coral reefs and the prospect that other locations will survive into the future with their natural stock.
Jess: Around the world, where are some reefs that are doing well and others that are dead? We hear a lot about Australia and our reefs here; what about internationally?
Dr Zoe Richards: Again, it's very, very variable. Right now in Hawaii, the corals are bleaching again. There's another thermal stress event beginning in Hawaii. In 2016, that thermal stress event began in Hawaii, moved right across the Pacific. So Fiji was getting damaged, into Indonesia was damaged, Maldives in particular was incredibly damaged. So there's pockets in all locations. There seems like there's pockets that escape, usually based on the local oceanographic conditions or if a cyclone has come through and cooled down the water or just because certain locations like the Kimberley have a very dynamic natural regime where they're exposed to a large range of temperature conditions naturally. Those corals have had to become robust throughout time to survive there. There's other places where there's really thermally tolerant corals and one in particular is the Red Sea, because the Red Sea heats right up, naturally. Over time corals have had to adapt to really high warm water to survive there. There are these places around the world and the search is on for those at the moment to try and identify them and learn as much as we can from those refuge areas.
Jess: If it's happening in the Red Sea, surely the coral here may adapt over time if the waters are heating?
Dr Zoe Richards: We're talking about adaptation that's potentially happened over thousands and thousands of years. But we do have a population like that and that's the one I've been working on in the Kimberley. So the central Kimberley is an incredibly dynamic part of the world where the tides are changing up to 12 metres a day in some places. At low tide, you'll be out standing on a reef flat completely out of the water. All the coral's exposed to the ambient air temperatures, sunlight, potentially rain during the monsoonal season. And then few hours later where you were standing would be underwater by metres. And that water is racing around cause the currents are ripping sediment all through the water. These corals; they're all over the place. It's so variable what they need to deal with on a 24-hour cycle. They've got high UV, low UV, higher temperature, lower temperature, no current, strong current; they have it all. They've needed to adapt to that. We definitely have one of these very interesting coral communities and refuges right here in Western Australia (WA) that we need to learn more about.
David: Which ones should we, as residents, rush on over to see before it's too late in WA?
Dr Zoe Richards: I've just come back from Coral Bay with some third-year students and I was just taken aback with how accessible that coral reef is. It's incredible. It's just right there on the coast. Beautiful snorkeling conditions and it's gorgeous, exceptional coral. So, for a family, that is the place to go. I really think Coral Bay is the most accessible and beautiful family-friendly snorkeling location and the opportunity to see the reef, see some beautiful fish, manta rays sitting at cleaning stations, getting fed... There's incredible damselfish territories within Coral Bay, which is really quite fun to watch. Coral Bay is exceptional. But, for those people who are fortunate enough to have a vessel, Abrolhos Islands is just another outrageously interesting location because where else in the world can you be diving on corals and have sea lions swimming past you?
David: I think that got declared a national park recently?
Dr Zoe Richards: There's been a lot of movement in that direction and so it should be because that is a really exceptional coral reef and because it's in the subtropical location, it's very diverse for such a high latitude. So again, that's another location where we need some more research. But it's a really, really spectacular diving and really important location in WA's fabric.
Jess: When you say 'more research': do we need more money? What do we need more of to get that data to help protect the future of these coral reefs?
Dr Zoe Richards: Well, that's it. There's always money behind everything, isn't there? But we need just more interest and more students coming into the ecology and environment sector. To protect the reef, we need the young people engaged in particular. We need them out there, seeing it, experiencing it, loving it and sharing that with their family and their personal networks. So, we build the momentum towards needing to protect reefs and learning about it and experiencing it. So yeah, the full spectrum of money, just all the way to understanding and education about the reef. We just need it all. And in the universities it's good to invest in species, biodiversity learning and taxonomic studies and arm these young people with the tools they need to understand biodiversity and to understand the reefs so they can reiterate that information to the public and engage everybody with the beauty and the spectacle that is coral reefs and ensure everyone's on board with how important it is to protect them.
David: Tell us about artificial reefs? What role do they have to play in this sustainability?
Dr Zoe Richards: Artificial reefs can be purpose-built reefs, such as what is being deployed off Exmouth. They can also be decommissioned oil and gas structures. In Western Australia, we have so much oil and gas infrastructure. It's a growing area at the moment. There's lots of debate around the value or not of artificial reefs. There's plenty of opportunities for them to provide new fishing habitats, so new opportunities for recreational fishes. But on the other hand, some people believe they accumulate invasive species. More work is happening in that space at the moment. I have a PhD student who has just started working in that space and he'll be using environmental DNA technologies to explore who is living on these artificial reef structures and their succession through time. There's certainly a hot debate around the idea of 'rig to reef'. It's not going away anytime soon. Could be good for the fishermen, but we're not sure how well it's gonna replicate a natural reef. We need to just keep working on that as well.
Jess: I think there's been a bit of work around that done in Queensland, correct me if I'm wrong, around artificial reefs and implanting those. Have you heard how that's going?
Dr Zoe Richards: Yeah. Well a little in Queensland... Queensland cause they've got the incredible Great Barrier Reef, which is protected as a marine park; they have been slower to get onboard with artificial reef structures. To my understanding, the main body of work is done in the Caribbean and in the US and they have deployed lots and lots of artificial reefs. And like I say, I think there's a mixed bag of results there as well. It will provide habitat to some species, but then it will also potentially in some cases provide habitat for species that we don't want. And we don't want them hopping from artificial reefs onto our natural reef systems. In Australia, yeah, the jury is really out at the moment on where we stand on that. But I have a feeling for the fishes, it'll be a good thing for recreational fishermen; it'll give them alternatives to release the pressure from natural reef systems and places they can go to have a good fishing outing, which is also important and part of our fabric and our culture as Australians, as coastal living people and particularly in Western Australia. We need people to have good experiences on the water and under the water. We need recreational opportunities for people. But then we want to relieve the pressure on the natural reefs as much as possible, so there certainly are likely to be positives around the artificial reefs.
Jess: Sounds like a bit of a balancing act.
Dr Zoe Richards: Always! Anything to do with environmental management. I'm sure you and the listeners would all agree it's a real balancing act, for sure.
Jess: Well thank you so much, Zoe. I think that brings us to the end of our discussion. We really appreciate you coming in and sharing your knowledge on this topic.
Dr Zoe Richards: It's my pleasure.
David: And finally, Jess: what's going on? How come you're not here next week?
Jess: Well, David, I'm heading off to have my first child. I'm incredibly sad to be taking a break, but I'm also incredibly excited as well. But been great working with you and interviewing all of our different academics here at Curtin University. It's been really interesting. I've learned so much. I don't know about you, but–.
David: Yes, and please send send your emails titled 'Have a good holiday' to Jess.
Jess: [Laughs]
David: No, no, no, no. I think, Jess, you told me explicitly... You caught me in the hallway last week and you said, 'Do not use the "H Word" in any context'.
Jess: I can't see it being much of a holiday. I won't be sleeping much. But incredibly excited.
David: Yes. Enjoy not sleeping much.
Jess: Cheers!
David: You've been listening to The Future Of, a podcast powered by Curtin University. If you have any questions about today's topic, get in touch by following the links in our show notes. Bye.