I don't know if you realize what it means, but coral reefs are not just cool things, beautiful things with marvelous corals . Coral reefs are really the nursery of the marine biodiversity.In coral reefs, many fish, just-- I don't know how you say-- well, they take life in the coral reefs.
Someone will call me up and they say, Jeremy, I went to that toilet paper aisle yesterday and I thought about you. Coral dies and algae thrives.
They're in the tropics, the water is clear, and there's very little nutrient in the water. Coral reefs have had to be really, really efficient to be able to grow there.And one of the things that corals have figured out how to do is by internally recycling those nutrients, they can be very efficient.
Now in the 1970s, people weren't really worried about the future of coral reefs. Coral reefs were doing just fine.But they were interested in trying to understand them.
You can't find trees in the fossil record for almost 10 million years. Coral reefs are replaced by piles of bacterial slime that kind of had gone away since the Precambrian.It's just a totally extreme event.
Oh, sorry-- I skipped over this. Coral reefs are a huge concern.Coral reefs are calcifiers.
Coral reefs are a huge concern.Coral reefs are calcifiers.This is just a quote from some British marine scientists that it's likely that reefs will be the first major ecosystem in the modern era to become ecologically extinct.
highly dynamic environment. This is a shot of a reef called Mikeís Point in Raja Ampat. Thereís a ton of current flow through here. These upwellings that feed the coral . This is what that point looks like from land. It looks like nothing, really, but itís ringed by really incredible reefs. And, in fact, this little island leaves awake because of the current, and was bombed in World War II because they thought it was a boat. Okay. On the other side of the spectrum, we
And I'm gonna take you to, what's this map of? : Coral reefs. Sanjayan: Coral reefs, great. So the lighter it is, the less intense the diversity of reefs are. So that's Hawaii, for example. That's the Caribbean.
But look at this place. Look how dark the color is. So that's the Coral Triangle and the Coral Triangle is the world's most diverse spot on earth. There's more species in the Coral Triangle than any other place on the planet.And of course when you go underwater you see enormous varieties of fish.
Everywhere is impacted by human activities. Corals are the foundation species of coral reefs, and we're finding the variation among corals is likely to have similar kinds of consequences.
There were anoxic, dead places in the ocean where there was so little oxygen that animals just couldn't survive there. Corals died off. In fact, there are beautiful coral reefs that just were gone.It was very, very difficult for life to continue in the ocean.
But I think Europe is setting that standard now. Corals will be wiped out.
They're actually what give the coral its color. Corals are naturally usually clear.But they have these algae that grow in their tissues that provide them with the food.
The trees are looking to get to the canopy to get up to the light. Corals are doing the same thing on a reef, but they do so in a pretty remarkable way.They'll take ions of calcium and ions of carbon out of the water column, and they'll use it to synthesize what is effectively rock--
I'm going to argue that it's got four parts. Corals across a whole reef will release this at the same time.
They have bones inside. Corals are incredible. You can see these guys getting out at night usually.They like that you do not see them.
Does anyone know what these are? Corals . Yeah, corals . Exactly.And do you know if coral is an animal, a vegetable, or a mineral?
The pH is dropping. The coral reefs are dissolving. The polar ice caps are shrinking.
Coral reefs are really the nursery of the marine biodiversity.In coral reefs, many fish, just-- I don't know how you say-- well, they take life in the coral reefs. So if we destroy this, we destroy full ecosystems in the oceans.
marine wildlife. But we also show films that are how we engage with the ocean, and appreciate it, and have fun with it, from surfing, Carl Coral . What? Carl Coral .
You can see there the Rosette, the instrument I told you. In coral reefs' ecosystem, they have different behaviors, and it's quite interesting.
And it's really adding up to what we see as an existential threat for coral reefs. Are coral reefs going to continue to exist in 100 years, or 1,000 years? Or are we doing things today that's really going to prevent that?
We're talking about coral reefs. And coral reefs are defined by the presence of corals . This photo shows actually a whole bunch of corals .
On top of it, people have a taste for fish. And coral reefs can support fisheries. They can also be easily overfished.
If you go hiking there, you can find fossil sea life everywhere. And coral reefs basically totally disappear for millions of years after this extinction. And so if it wasn't asteroids, what was it?
like Coral bleaching and deforestation illegal Timber Harvest antibiotic resistance Wildlife trafficking and
thinking coral reefs are gone worldwide in 10 or 20 years gone that's 25 percent of the world's species this is a
Elkhorn coral is very vulnerable.
They were browns, and greens, and oranges. These corals in this photo are stark white. And this is a process called coral bleaching that's been in the news a lot in the last few years.
But most of their energy on a daily basis doesn't actually come from being a predator, most of it actually comes from small plants that live inside its tissues. The corals are basically farmers. And what they figured out how to do is how to grow little tiny, tiny plants inside their tissues that provide the coral with food.
From one year to the next, from one season to the next, it's a very predictable environment. And corals over evolutionary time, have figured out how to fine tune their relationship with those little tiny plants that live inside their tissues, so that they have it working just perfectly.
I'm going to argue that it's got four parts. Some corals are already really good at living in hot water.
I'm going to argue that it's got four parts. Some corals are already really good at living in polluted water or really strong wave forces, because they live on reefs that have
I'm going to argue that it's got four parts. The corals in this picture live in a very strange reef in coastal Honduras that sits at the mouth of a river that's
I'm going to argue that it's got four parts. When corals reproduce sexually, they've figured out a solution for this.
I'm going to argue that it's got four parts. that corals are connected to each other.
I'm going to argue that it's got four parts. Are corals capable of doing this?
of corals that we found might be the most likely to bleach, and focusing in on those.
kill corals way home um so corals also have competitors things called Turf
This is just a quote from some British marine scientists that it's likely that reefs will be the first major ecosystem in the modern era to become ecologically extinct. Because corals turn out to be pretty sensitive-- many, many species, at least-- to these changes in ocean pH. So back to our invaders.
from something like this. While itís interesting to look at, you have to think about how to get a shot. In this little ledge there, or a bunch of interesting corals , these are really interesting corals to see under the water. Theyíre very, very shallow, and particularly interesting because theyíre in a location where you can shoot upwards through the surface of the water and see some trees. So I played around here and took some shots, but I felt like something was missing. So I went back to that location
It was encrusted with coral .
By removing the coral and the debris, they realized it was a machine, a machine that shouldn't exist, a machine that was 2,000 years more advanced than its time.
Even simple organisms like coral larva have cilia.
And the coral reefs are definitely struggling.
And genetically modified coral will and can be up to three degrees resistant to temperature, so really trying to get that pushed out.
And the coral reefs off the Western coast of Australia are absolutely littered with shipwrecks from captains that missed their turning.
The last thing is that the global acidity, pH of the ocean, is also increasing-- the acidity. And this destroys the coral reefs. And the current trajectory, again, if states are not more ambition than what they are now, more than 99% of coral reefs will be destroyed
marine wildlife. But we also show films that are how we engage with the ocean, and appreciate it, and have fun with it, from surfing, Can we have Coral Sponge Bob, or coral whatever his name is?