not receiving any comments on the incredible new marine reserve the
Aussies established in Sept.  has not discouraged me from posting
further relevant marine news.  Not trying to "proselytize" people to a
conservationist stance, but just posting a few things that i think many
members of the list might be interested in.

Coral reefs, the marine equivalant of terrestrial rain forests, are
fantastic resevoirs of biodiversity, as nearly every conchologists
knows.  However, these beautiful, immensely important ecosystems are
more fragile than one might think, and are in serious danger of being
nearly wiped out in the next century or less, due to massive changes in
the earth's biosphere which are both encouraged, and ignored by the
mechanisms of our present "civilization" (for want of a better word).
Here is another story about how our actions are interracting with
natural processes to endanger one of the natural wonders of the world -
the Great Barrier Reef in Australian waters:

http://ens-news.com/ens/oct2002/2002-10-18-02.asp [i highly recommend
the ENS news service - it provides well-written stories about
environmental issuses worldwide on a daily basis, and has a fantastic archive!]

Mystery Disease Kills Coral on Great Barrier Reef TOWNSVILLE,
Queensland, Australia, October 18, 2002 (ENS) - Scientists at the
Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) have confirmed the
existence of coral disease on the world's longest reef, the Great
Barrier Reef which stretches along Australia's east coast. Researchers
at the government institute do not have to travel far to see the giant
reef - they just glance out their front door - but they have searched
the world for a clue to the cause of the disease they have observed.
AIMS scientists working in the long term monitoring program say the
disease they have documented is in a broad category known as White
Syndrome. Soon they hope to learn exactly what White Syndrome is. Cathie
Page surveying infected coral on Yonge reef off Lizard Island. (Photo ©
Australian Institute of Marine Science) Cathie Page, a deep ocean
ecologist on the AIMS long term monitoring team, says, "It's more common
on table corals. It starts at the base and works its way up. The disease
breaks the coral tissue down, eventually killing it." "It doesn't fit
the description of diseases found anywhere else in the world, so it
might be specific to the Pacific," she says. In the three years Page has
been on the monitoring team, she has logged about 450 dives spanning 48
reefs. She has seen White Syndrome kill at varying rates. "It could kill
a colony of two metres (6.5 feet) in diameter in two weeks but in some
other cases, it takes months to kill a large colony," she said. The
first record of coral diseases came from reefs off Belize and Florida in
1973. In 1993 coral diseases were noticed on the Great Barrier Reef.
When the diseases worsened in the late 1990s, the long term monitoring
team started documenting their activity. In 1999 only seven reefs were
infected with White Syndrome; in 2002 33 reefs were affected out of the
48 studied by the AIMS long term monitoring team. The highest number of
infected colonies within one reef was 101 in a 1,500 square meter area.
That was on Carter Reef, an outer shelf reef in the Cooktown/Lizard
Island sector. The syndrome killed those colonies infected and caused a
decline in hard coral cover on this reef. AIMS scientists together with
researchers from James Cook University who are collaborating on the
project have recorded the disease in northern waters during the winter
months. Outer-shelf reefs near Lizard Island off Cooktown in the
northern Great Barrier Reef and the Capricorn Bunker reefs in the
southern Great Barrier Reef are the worst affected areas. White Syndrome
has taken hold of this Tabulate Acropora coral. (Photo © Australian
Institute of Marine Science) White Syndrome outbreaks are happening in
pristine areas of the Great Barrier Reef, the AIMS teams says, on outer
reefs untouched by coastal development and tourism. This means the reef
diseases are not linked to pollution, as are other coral diseases around
the world. Coral bleaching is also affecting the great reef, and
scientists fear White Syndrome could be spreading more quickly in corals
weakened by bleaching. Coral bleaching is the name given to an event
where coral expel their symbiotic algae due to extreme stress, such as
unusually hot water, according to AIMS bleaching expert Dr. Terry Done.
The bleached corals die if the stress is extreme or prolonged. With
rising water temperatures over the tropical summers, coral bleaching
events are more widespread and happening more often, leaving little time
for coral to recover. "Bleached coral is not healthy and potentially
more susceptible to diseases," said Page. "We don't know what's causing
this disease. It's microscopic; it could be a range of things." AIMS has
sent samples of corals affected by White Syndrome away for testing. When
the results come back, they will search for solutions that might save
the corals of the Great Barrier Reef.

-JR.