The Final Frontier?

Q: The skeleton of what exotic, aquatic animal is displayed in many American homes?

A: Me!  I’m a coral.  Lots of you have samples of my skeletons in your home aquariums. That’s kind of spooky, if you ask me. You people call yourselves civilized?

You’ve heard of coral reefs?  They are made by us corals. That’s right, we are very tiny animals, called polyps. We have cell membranes, are just a few centimeters in length, and a few millimeters in diameter.  I’m spineless, yes, and genetically equivalent to my many brothers and sisters.  We are a little like an underwater “Borg” colony, I guess you could say.  A sack with a stomach and a mouth, with surrounding tentacles that can catch plankton.  We keep it simple, although there are a thousand different kinds of us, producing different exoskeletons that might end up looking like a brain or a table top.

Single-cell algae live right within my tissues, providing me with energy and nutrients and color via photosynthesis.  How cool is that?  Hey, I protect them and they work for me.  Sunlight is the key for that process to work so I need to live in clear water, not too deep and not too shallow.  I secrete a hard, carbonate exoskeleton which protects me.

Those skeletons of me and my family add up and bond together over time to form coral reefs.  Persistence is the key to that, us corals have been around in one form or another for over 500 million years. Yep, pretty much forever. 

Most of our existing work has been around for less than 10,000 years, though, that is when melting ice caused sea levels to rise and flood continental shelves.  My kind had to grow upwards, matching the rising sea levels.  Persistence does pay off, as you can see some of our reefs from space today.  How much of your work can be seen from space?  Nothing I know of besides the Great Wall of China (I heard that has been crumbling, by the way, somebody had better get on it!)

So what good are coral reefs?  Well, we provide homes for about 25% of all marine species, even though we cover only about 0.1% of the world’s ocean surface.  Coral reefs are like English muffins, we have the nooks and crannies that fish love to navigate, or love to visit to eat those fish.  That  also creates a lot of touristy opportunities for your kind.  My reefs have been called rainforests of the sea, because of the extremely diverse ecosystems which you can find there. 

Actually, I would really prefer that you did NOT find them there.  Human interference is one thing that is killing me off.  Prime example: sunscreen.  You heard right!  Thousands of tons of it washes off of humans and finds its way into ocean environments.  Some sunscreens use chemicals which, if even a minute part of them gets into me, it stimulates viruses inside my algae. The viruses replicate until the algae explodes.  Without the algae, I turn white and die.  This can end up infecting the whole reef, a phenomenon known as coral bleaching.

Do you need any more evidence that we’re all interconnected on this Earth?  Seriously, I would reconsider/review your choice of sunscreens.  These four chemicals that cause my viruses (oxybenzone, butylparaben, octinoxate, and methylbenzylidene camphor) are ones that you may be PUTTING DIRECTLY ONTO YOUR BODY.  I’m no doctor or scientist, I’m just saying, let the buyer beware.  Smart companies are now marketing sunscreens that don’t include them.  Thank you!

Ironically, I know quite a bit about sunscreen.  My symbiotic algae make a compound they share with me, which I modify as a sunscreen that protects both of us.  It really works, fish that feed on coral even benefit from the same protection.  Smart scientists are trying to replicate a synthetic version, in the hopes of creating a pill for humans.  Since coral is endangered, they at least have the decency not to try to extract it from us.  That would pretty much be the final indignity.

What with global warming, acid rain, overfishing, agricultural runoff and pollution, I have my tentacles full.  About 25% of coral reefs have perished over just the last few decades.  Another 25% could easily die out over the next twenty years if things don’t change.  Seems like you humans are racing to see which you can destroy first, the rainforests on land or the “forests” under the water. That would be one-half of all coral reefs – gone.  Where’s the outrage?  I need a new publicist, that’s for sure.   

Well I’ve spoken my peace, for what it’s worth.  Now for the entertainment part of our show.  I’ve always wanted to paraphrase the great and wise Seabastian, with apologies to the Disney folks.  Feel free to sing along, it will make you feel better!  I think you know the tune.

Under the sea

Under the sea

Coral be living

So don’t be giving

Your sunscreen to me

Under the sea

Under the sea

You got to hear it

Just don’t go near it

Naturally

Under the sea

Under the sea

Darling it’s better

Down where it’s wetter

Please take care of me.

To view a 60 Minutes video of a visit to a coral reef, click here.

To see comments from a UNC ecologist on the above 60 Minutes segment, click here.

For info from the EPA on coral reefs and what they are doing to protect them, click here.

Click here to learn what you can specifically do to protect coral reefs.