鉴于大屏障礁快死了,遭受了非常重大的破坏和无数珊瑚的消息,成为珊瑚或珊瑚礁爱好者可能会令人沮丧。但是,如果媒体擅长的一件事就是关注负面和令人震惊,因为“如果流血,它会导致”。
For sure there’s some serious degradation going on with wild coral reefs but there’s also some researchers that are focusing on how reefs will change and recover over time. There’s a very interesting and inspiring school of thought called the Deep Reef Refuge Hypothesis, investigating how deep living corals might repopulate the shallows (provided conditions are suitable for coral growth again).
The Deep Reef Refuge Hypothesis only pertains, naturally, to those species of corals that are flexible enough to grow in shallow和rather deep water, so shallow water specific-corals like mostAcropora物种实际上无法从这个深水储备中受益。但是珊瑚喜欢Seriatopora,Stylophora和some species ofMontiporacan have a rather wide depth distribution for a single species.
One recent study looked atSeriatopora可以在浅水中发现的鸟类珊瑚在浅水中生长,直到15英尺的水,一直到120英尺的清水中。该研究的目的是研究浅水和深水菌落的繁殖行为有何不同,并至少从水平的角度产生了大量见解。
Due to living at depth, with less access to light and energy, deepwater birdnest corals had a reduced reproductive period, and their larvae were smaller and weaker than the shallow water counterparts. This somewhat hinders their ability to be robust recolonizers of shallow water reefs, but this is a physiological trait, not a genetic one.
随后几代深层珊瑚的迁移更加浅,这些垂直的珊瑚可能会重新填充浅水礁,但在很长的时间轴上。Barring any kind of severe mixing or water flow disturbance, it won’t happen any time soon, but if we can restore and preserve the coral reef environment, the Deep Reef Refuge Hypothesis does hold hope that the ocean has a natural repository for coral reefs of the future. [Mesophotic]