Best of our wild blogs: 13 Apr 12

Special giant clam at Terumbu Bemban
from wild shores of singapore

Common Iora feeding on a katydid
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Bishan Park after the rain
from Fahrenheit minus 459

Beach-goer can't enjoy stroll along Changi shoreline as it's strewn with rubbish
from Lazy Lizard's Tales

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Malaysia: Perhilitan to relocate wild elephants

The Star 13 Apr 12;

JERANTUT: Efforts are underway to trap and relocate several wild elephants which veered into an oil palm plantation in Felda Gelanggi Dua near here recently.

Pahang Wildlife Protection and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) director Khairiah Mohd Sharif said a team had been deployed to track down these pachyderms after receiving a complaint from several settlers.

“We have received information that a herd of wild elephants have trespassed into a plantation estate and destroyed crops.

“If there is a need, we would trap and relocate these elephants to another suitable location to prevent any untoward incident,” she said.

Khairiah said relocating these giant mammals was the best solution for both parties to ensure its survival in the natural habitat.

She said the exercise would cost the department RM45,000 for each elephant, in addition to allowances for its personnel.

“As such, relocation is the last resort as it is time consuming and a tedious process,” she said.

Last week, several settlers claimed they suffered losses of some RM5,000 when a herd of wild elephants trespassed into their plantation and ate some of its crops.

They said the elephants were believed to have veered from Berkelah forest reserve, bordering the settlement.

An estimated 1,200 wild elephants are said to roam the forests in the peninsular while between 400 and 500 of them have been relocated to Taman Negara, Rompin and Belum forest reserve.

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Great Barrier Reef ‘not so great’

James Cook University Science Alert 12 Apr 12;

Researchers at James Cook University have questioned why coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef has continued to decline when it is recognised as “the best managed coral reef system in the world”.

Jon Brodie, Senior Principal Research Officer with JCU’s Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWater) and Research Fellow Jane Waterhouse said that recent estimates put average coral cover across the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) at about 20–30% - estimated to be a large reduction since the 1960s.

“The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act was enacted in 1975 and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) set up shortly afterwards,” they said.

“So the question is: why has coral cover continued to decline when the GBR is being managed with a management regime often recognised as ‘the best managed coral reef system in the world’, based on a strong science-for-management ethic.”

Writing in Elsevier’s Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science journal, Brodie and Waterhouse said that the stressors which are known to be most responsible for the loss of coral cover and general ‘reef health’ were terrestrial pollution including the link to outbreaks of crown of thorns starfish, fishing impacts and climate change.

“However the management response of the GBRMPA after 1975, while based on a strong science-for-management program, did not concentrate on these issues but instead on managing access through zoning with restrictions on fishing in very limited areas and tourism management.”

They wrote that significant action on fishing, including trawling, did not occur until the Trawl Management Plan of 2000 and the rezoning of the GBR Marine Park in 2004. Effective action on terrestrial pollution did not occur until the Australian Government Reef Rescue initiative, which commenced in 2008.

“Effective action on climate change has yet to begin either nationally or globally,” they said.

In their paper Mr Brodie and Ms Waterhouse said it was not surprising that coral cover on the GBR had reduced to values similar to those seen in other coral reef areas in the world such as Indonesia and the Philippines.

“Science has always required long periods to acquire sufficient evidence to drive management action and hence there is a considerable time lag between the establishment of scientific evidence and the introduction of effective management.

“It can still be credibly claimed that the GBR is the best managed coral reef system in the world but it must be realised that this is a relative assessment against other reef systems and management regimes and not an absolute claim for effective management.”

They said that the GBR has been managed under a complex but powerful regime with great governmental support, financing and research and monitoring expenditure since 1975.

They said there had been notable successes in recent times including:

the major rezoning of 2004 with new no-take zones showing increased fish populations but also apparent effects on crown of thorns starfish populations;

little loss of mangroves as a result of strong prohibitions on damaging marine plants under the Queensland Fisheries legislation;

sewage effluent discharges from resort islands and mainland cities and towns have been improved dramatically; and

strong action on compulsory pilotage and navigation equipment may have prevented many shipping accidents but ships still manage to run on to the reef every decade or so.

“On the other hand coral cover has declined considerably, seagrass health in the central GBR is in poor shape, dugong numbers have declined precipitously, shark populations are in serious decline (although perhaps recent management has reduced the rate of decline), many other large fish on the GBR have had large population declines (although data on many are incomplete) and the fourth wave of crown of thorns starfish outbreaks has commenced.

“Most notably coral bleaching has become more frequent, widespread and damaging and coral calcification has started to decline due to ocean acidification.”

They write that the reasons for this situation are complex but include the need for reasonably ‘certain’ science before management action occurs - and the long times need to achieve this.

Time lags in recovery after management action are long. For a slow breeding animal like a dugong – one calf every few years - population recovery is a very slow process and catchment management activities such as reafforestation of riparian areas take decades to reduce erosion and river sediment loads.

“In particular the need to get the political, organisational, scientific, economic and human elements to align at the right time so effective management can occur in time to avert phase change is a frighteningly difficult task,” Brodie and Waterhouse said.

They conclude that it “is easy now for us to claim that management should have focussed on these from the start of the GBRMPA. However, as is often said, hindsight is a wonderful thing and both authors of this paper have been engaged from long ago in a water quality management role for the GBR.”

“Our inability to manage climate change for the GBR, including increased temperatures, extreme weather events and ocean acidification, means that even in the light of some success in other management areas and the fact that the GBR is the best managed reef system in the world means the long term prognosis for a healthy GBR system is poor.

“The extension of the Reef Plan management actions beyond 2013, the continued strong management of no-take zones in the GBR and a better management regime for the coastal and estuarine areas of the GBR are thus even more essential to give us any hope of retaining some of the World Heritage values of the system.”

“A critical review of environmental management of the ‘not so Great’ Barrier reef” was published in the journal Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.

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Why climate change might not spell death for the Reef

Sydney Morning Herald 13 Apr 12;

Rising ocean temperatures caused by climate change are unlikely to mean the end of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef, according to a new scientific study.

The Cell Press journal Current Biology this morning published what it says is the first large-scale investigation of climate effects on corals and found while some corals were dying, others were flourishing and adapting to the change in water temperatures.

For the study researchers identified and measured more than 35,000 coral colonies on 33 reefs across the length of the Great Barrier Reef to see how they were responding to warming ocean waters.


In results they have described as ‘‘surprising’’ the study found while one species declined in abundance, other species could rise in number.

One of the researchers, Professor Terry Hughes from James Cook University, said while critical issues remained he now believed rising temperatures were unlikely to mean the end of the coral reef.

‘‘The good news is that, rather than experiencing wholesale destruction, many coral reefs will survive climate change by changing the mix of coral species as the ocean warms and becomes more acidic,’’ he said.

‘‘That’s important for people who rely on the rich and beautiful coral reefs of today for food, tourism, and other livelihoods.’’

He said earlier studies of climate change and corals had been done on a much smaller geographical scale, with a primary focus on total coral cover or counts of species as rather crude indicators of reef health.

‘‘We chose the iconic Great Barrier Reef as our natural laboratory because water temperature varies by 8 to 9 degrees Celsius along its full length from summer to winter, and because there are wide local variations in pH,’’ he said.

‘‘Its regional-scale natural gradients encompass the sorts of conditions that will apply several decades from now under business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions.’’

The warming of the ocean’s temperatures due to climate change will change the composition of coral reefs and while this will mean the end for some species it will mean others are adapting to survive.

The report also listed other human impact dangers to the reef including over-fishing and pollution and noted some coral had adapted to the new conditions these changes presented.

‘‘The accelerating impact of climate change on coral reefs is of major concern worldwide,’’ the report said.

‘‘Contemporary research on how climate change affects coral reefs has matured beyond the simplistic ‘‘canary in the coal mine’’ concept to a more nuanced recognition that climate-related pressures such as bleaching (due to the loss of symbiotic zooxanthellae) and ocean acidification do not affect all species equally.

‘‘In this context, a critical issue for the future status of reefs will be their ability to maintain functional capacity in the face of the changes in species composition.’’

The report said coral reefs are one of the world’s most complex and vulnerable ecosystems and face an uncertain future in the coming decades as they continue to respond to the impacts of human contact and pollution and the called the findings of the study ‘‘profound’’.

‘‘The flexibility in community composition that we document along latitudinal environmental gradients indicates that climate change is likely to result in a reassortment of coral reef taxa rather than wholesale loss of entire reef ecosystems,’’ it said.

‘‘Our results have profound implications for the future expectations of regional-scale impacts of climate change on coral reefs.

‘‘Importantly, the susceptibility of corals to thermal stress and bleaching, reduced alkalinity, and other climate-related phenomena all vary substantially within and between taxa (the organisms which make up the coral reefs).’’

Under Climate Change, Winners and Losers On the Coral Reef
ScienceDaily 12 Apr 12;

As ocean temperatures rise, some species of corals are likely to succeed at the expense of others, according to a report published online on April 12 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology that details the first large-scale investigation of climate effects on corals.

"The good news is that, rather than experiencing wholesale destruction, many coral reefs will survive climate change by changing the mix of coral species as the ocean warms and becomes more acidic," said Terry Hughes of James Cook University in Australia. "That's important for people who rely on the rich and beautiful coral reefs of today for food, tourism, and other livelihoods."

In an attempt to understand the sorts of changes that may take place as the world's oceans warm, the researchers examined the coral composition of reefs along the entire length of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Earlier studies of climate change and corals have been done on a much smaller geographical scale, with a primary focus on total coral cover or counts of species as rather crude indicators of reef health.

"We chose the iconic Great Barrier Reef as our natural laboratory because water temperature varies by 8 to 9 degrees Celsius along its full length from summer to winter, and because there are wide local variations in pH," Hughes explained. "Its regional-scale natural gradients encompass the sorts of conditions that will apply several decades from now under business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions."

In total, the researchers identified and measured more than 35,000 coral colonies on 33 reefs. Their survey revealed surprising flexibility in the assembly of corals. As they saw one species decline in abundance, some other species would tend to rise. The waxing or waning of any given coral species the researchers observed as they moved along the coastline occurred independently of changes to other coral species.

Hughes concludes that corals' response to climate change is likely to be more complicated than many had thought. Although he now believes that rising temperatures are unlikely to mean the end of the coral reef, critical issues remain.

"If susceptible table and branching species are replaced by mound-shaped corals, it would leave fewer nooks and crannies where fish shelter and feed," he said. "Coral reefs are also threatened by much more local impacts, especially by pollution and overfishing. We need to address all of the threats, including climate change, to give coral reefs a fighting chance for the future."

Journal Reference:

Hughes TP, Baird AH,Dinsdale EA, Moltschaniwskyj NA, Pratchett MS, Tanner JE, Willis BL. Assembly rules of reef corals are flexible along a steep climatic gradient. Current Biology, 2012 (in press)

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Are 4 Big Earthquakes in 2 Days Connected?

Stephanie Pappas LiveScience.com Yahoo News 13 Apr 12;

The 8.6-magnitude earthquake that hit off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, yesterday (April 11) was followed by several decent-size shakes along the west coast of North America, but researchers can't say for certain whether all the temblors were related.

It's possible, geophysicists say, that quakes off the coast of Oregon, Michoacan, Mexico, and in the Gulf of California ranging from magnitudes 5.9 to 6.9 on the Richter Scale had something to do with the large earthquake that struck near Indonesia. But the west coast quakes were fairly standard for their location.

"The Earth is in constant motion," said Aaron Velasco, a geophysicist at the University of Texas, El Paso. "I wouldn't necessarily say it's unusual, but we will definitely be looking at these earthquakes to see if there's any link between them."

It's undeniable that earthquakes can trigger other quakes at close range over a short period of time, phenomena known as aftershocks. At a distance, though, the picture is murkier. Quakes can trigger other quakes in two ways, said John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Washington. First, they can put stress on nearby faults, deforming the crust and making another rupture more likely. That mechanism is limited to regions close to the original quake.

But earthquakes also send surface waves over long distances. The shaking from yesterday's Sumatra quake, for example, was picked up by seismic monitoring stations in the United States. The shaking may not deform the crust, but researchers leave open the possibility that it could still jump-start small quakes. [See a movie of the Sumatra quake shaking the U.S. Midwest]

"My guess is that the shaking was strong enough to actually trigger a little bit of activity," Vidale told LiveScience. But if the west coast activity of the last few days was related to the Sumatra quake, it wasn't out of the ordinary, he added.

"The activity it triggered isn't that much more than was already there," Vidale said. "It doesn't add much to the overall danger."

Proving that two earthquakes are linked over long distances or more than a couple of hours of time is "one of the toughest challenges we face," Velasco told LiveScience. With the earthquake records that are available, it hasn't yet been possible to find any firm patterns, he said.

"We don't have enough data to say yes, and we don't have enough data to say no," he said.

Prognosticating quakes is difficult, because humans don't live on the geologic time scale, said G. Randy Keller, a geophysicist at the University of Oklahoma.

"We only have recorded earthquakes for about 100 years, scientifically," Keller told LiveScience. What that means, he said, is that "if you get somebody who tells you he's got it all figured out, don't believe him."

What researchers do know is that the Sumatra quake was interesting on its own. The quake was a strike-slip quake, meaning the fault moved horizontally, not vertically like the enormous 2004 earthquake that triggered the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami. [Waves of Destruction: History's Biggest Tsunamis]

"This particular earthquake is the biggest strike-slip earthquake that we've seen anywhere, and people are trying to figure out how much motion was on the fault," Vidale said. Either the fault went deeper or was under more strain than seismologists had realized, he said.

"It's too soon to say exactly what we'll learn," Vidale said. "So far, we're just surprised."

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