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WATER WORLD
Rising sea levels may help select coral reefs
by Brooks Hays
Perth, Australia (UPI) Aug 19, 2016


Zebra finches use song to prepare unborn chicks for global warming
Victoria, Australia (UPI) Aug 19, 2016 - Until now, the research into the avian phenomenon of "incubation calling" has been limited. That may soon change, as a new study suggests the parenting strategy may help prepare chicks for a warming climate.

Incubation calling is the act of singing to unborn chicks, still inside unhatched eggs. When researchers closely studied the incubation calls of 61 female and 61 male zebra finches, recently captured from the wild, they noticed that parents only sang to their eggs toward the end of incubation -- and only when temperatures crested 78 degrees Farhenheit.

In follow-up tests, researchers showed that nestlings exposed to incubation calling weighed less when hatched than those that weren't, and gained less weight throughout their development to adulthood. Scientists argue that smaller body mass is an advantage because there is less risk of oxidative damage. Oxidation is the harmful accumulation of unstable molecules among DNA, fat and proteins -- increasing the risk of physiological defects.

Scientists continued to track the success of both chicks that had been exposed to singing and those that had not. Those prepared by incubation calling went on to produce more fledglings.

"Such profound and long lasting effects of prenatal acoustic experience had never been demonstrated before," lead researcher Mylene Mariette, an ecologist at Deakin University, said in a news release.

The new research was published this week in the journal Science.

Though the factors triggering rising seas may be harming the planet's marine species, more ocean water isn't necessarily a bad thing. New research suggests for some coral reef systems it may be beneficial.

For coral, large temperature swings are to be avoided. That's getting harder in a warming world, especially for coral subject to dramatic tidal systems.

As scientists at the University of Western Australia argue in a new paper, published this week in the journal Science Advances, high sea levels may insulate vulnerable corals against tide-triggered temperature spikes.

"Temperature is widely recognized as a key environmental driver of reefs and temperature extremes are known to be one of the key stressors to coral reef communities around the world," Ryan Lowe, a researcher with UWA's Oceans Institute and School of Earth and Environment, said in a news release.

Data detailing how tides influence temperature is limited, but Lowe and his colleagues designed a model to analyze the effects of tides and global temperatures on water temperature. The simulation can predict how tides influence the temperatures in shallow reef systems, and how these systems might be affected by global warming.

The model identified several shallow reef systems subject to tidal temperature swings as large as 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Simulations showed shallow reef systems reach maximum temperatures when low tides align with the midday sun.

"These temperatures are particularly extreme in regions when the tidal range is large when compared to the water depth over a reef, which can cause shallow water to 'pond' within reefs for extended periods of time each day," Lowe explained. "So even a modest rise in sea level could help lower the water temperature of the reef and may also partially reduce reef heat extremes in the world's warming oceans."


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Previous Report
WATER WORLD
Unexpected complexity in coral
Onna, Japan (SPX) Aug 19, 2016
Coral reefs are delicate ecosystems, which are endangered by climate change and human activities. The restoration of these underwater environments is typically carried out by transplanting corals from healthy reefs to compromised ones. This practice can be problematic, as it overlooks the local characteristics of each reef, and may reduce genetic diversity. The first step towards an ecolog ... read more


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