Imagine you are diving along the reef, suddenly you spot a single diver in the distance, scrutinizing a piece of reef, surrounded by a metal frame like on the picture below. What’s going on? The solution of the riddle: the diver is a marine biologist during his or her working hours - and this marine biologist is not alone – there is another one doing the same thing, just around the corner. Many marine biologists around the world spend thousands of hours in the water, observing and assessing the reef. This is necessary in order to know what changes take place under water over time; and also to determine whether a reef is healthy or unhealthy and to compare this data with other places around the world. The picture below shows Patrik, our senior project officer, during a reef observation. He is using a quadrat transect to compare 1square meter of reef with another one. So over time we have collected data from hundreds and hundreds of quadrats. Reef monitoring is the key to understanding what is going on underwater. And reef monitoring is based on mathematics. You will not believe how many different things you can count and how much mathematics there is in every corner of the reef. Did you know there are roughly about 800 different coral species and each and every one looks different? You may already know corals produce their own skeleton and only the last couple of millimeters on the outside are alive. A coral’s skeleton is similar to our fingerprint – it is unique but many people have similar ones. Each coral species has a unique shape, composed of holes – the actual home of the coral polyp - and valleys and mountains; but they have many things in common with other corals from the same coral family. And all these textures and holes follow mathematical logic. It is also a form of graphic design – made by nature. How does a scientist know whether a reef is healthy or unhealthy? It is like going to a crime scene and searching for evidence; trying to find out what happened there. First, a scientist will look at the composition of the reef substrate: how many corals, how much rock, how much dead coral or sand there is. The more a scientist can find out the better. So counting coral families helps, because we know the more diverse a reef is, the healthier it tends to be. Next time you are in the water try to estimate for yourself how much of the floor is covered with corals: if 70-90% is covered with healthy living corals the reef is most likely a happy one. Scientists then also want to know if they find anything that could potentially kill corals: algae or seaweed, for example. Algae are continuously attacking corals. They love to grow wherever pollution is high, because of elevated nutrients in these areas. High rates of sedimentation (this is fine sand stirred up in the water) may be fatal for corals as well. Strong currents may cause sedimentation, but also unchecked sand pumping can smother and kill large areas of the reef. So a marine biologist is like a storyteller of what once was – maybe you can try to do the same?
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 15:09:54 +0000
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