coral reefs

Puerto Rico close to a massive coral reef loss

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Gerardo E. Alvarado León

Due to the warming ocean temperatures, coral reefs around Puerto Rico have been under stress for more than 7 weeks in a row, which could provoke a massive bleaching event after October 27. If this bleaching occurs there could be negative effects of unknown magnitude to fishing, recreational and tourism industries. 

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Natural spaces being restored following Hurricanes Irma and Maria

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Gerardo E. Alvarado León

The organization Mercy Corps, in collaboration with other entities, is leading several environmental recovery and rehabilition projects around Puerto Rico following Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The goal is to attract tourism and improve the economy.

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Edwin A. Hernández Delgado: Paladin of corals and their conservation

Wilson Gonzalez-Espada's picture
Dr . Edwin Hernández
Dr . Edwin Hernández

Corals have an extraordinary ecological role. They serve as the main habitat for thousands of species and are the base of the coastal food web. Corals also protect from coastal erosion, to mitigate greenhouse gases and global warming, to boost the fishing industry, and to serve as places for tourism and recreation. However, in the last decades, many corals have been dying. The attackers are many: turbidity, sedimentation, fecal contamination, climate change and even military bombs. 

Searching for a Solution to Coral Bleaching

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Aviva Hope Rutkin (translated by Mónica Feliú-Mójer)

Visiting scientist Guillermo Yudowski wants to make sea anemones happy.

Every morning, he arrives at his MBL laboratory and looks into a group of plastic tanks. Inside are samples of Aiptasia pallida, a hardy strain of anemone found in abundance near the University of Puerto Rico, where Yudowski conducts neurobiological research. Happy A. pallida, he says, are “colorful and open”; sad ones are closed and white. The white samples are near death and will only last three to four days in their containers.

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Our coral reefs: "touch with your eyes"

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Scientists from the Social and Environmental Research Institute (SERI) found that pre-trip messaging can dramatically reduce the impacts of snorkelers and divers to reefs.

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