• Question: why is the coral reef dying?

    Asked by 349ecyf42 to Hannah, Joanna, Joe, Luis, Vincent on 16 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by Kaibi.
    • Photo: Hannah Grist

      Hannah Grist answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      I know it’s been in the news a lot recently that the coral reef in Australia looks like it is dying. It’s sad, isn’t it?

      Coral is actually two different species that live together very closely. When coral becomes stressed, the two species separate (imagine they have had a fight because they are both stressed and grouchy, and one of them walks out of the room!). That’s called coral bleaching. Sometimes it’s fine because they make up and come back together, but sometimes they don’t, and they can’t live separately. That is when the coral dies.

      There are several reasons why coral might become stressed. One is if the water is too hot around it. This might be because of global warming, making all the seas a little bit hotter. One other possibility is that there might be too much pollution running into the water.

    • Photo: Joe Nunez-Mino

      Joe Nunez-Mino answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      Coral Reefs can suffer from many different stresses that can cause them to die. Pollution and climate change are two things that can make coral reefs die but so can invasive species introduced from other parts of the world or if one animal suddenly goes extinct it can have a chain reaction

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