Eric Buell

Department of English, Weber State University

ENGL 2015

Dr Liz Robison, Dr Miranda Kispert

November 2, 2023
 Evaluated Annotated Bibliography

The Coral Reef Crisis

Coral reefs are among the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Coral reefs provide a

habitat for many different species promoting wide biodiversity. This is what makes coral reefs

one of the most important and heavily studied marine ecosystems. Continuing research is just

beginning to understand the benefit coral reefs have in our understanding of marine and

microbiology, biological function, and even medicine. Due to the climate crisis, the coral reefs

are in danger due to their delicate nature. Researchers are continually studying the impact of

coral bleaching, rising water temperatures, and increased CO2 levels. Evidence supports that if

action is not taken, the damage will be irreversible and will have detrimental effects on marine

life.

Coral Guardian. (n.d.). Coral Guardian https://www.coralguardian.org/en/coral-reef-important/

Coral Guardian, as described on their website, “is a non-governmental organization. Since 2012,

we have been working internationally and with local communities to protect coral ecosystems.”

The organization was co-founded by Martin Colognoli, a prominent marine biologist who

worked with an undisclosed business exporting coral and marine wildlife. While working in

Indonesia, Colognoli and his team started their “Adopt a Coral” program “allowing anyone to

contribute to the protection of our ocean.” At this time, the team adopted the name Coral

Guardian. Since then, the team has launched multiple programs including their participatory

marine conservation pilot project, Blue Center. They have used this project as their model to

launch smaller projects around the world, including the islands of Indonesia, the Mediterranean
 Sea, and recently Spain. Their website contains sections labeled “About us”, “Our actions”,

“Where we work”, “Corals”, and “Get involved”, and a link to their REEF blog. All information

on Coral Guardian’s history and impact is found here. Their “Corals” section contains

information about the importance of coral reefs. They provide facts about corals such as the high

diversity concentration, food, and economic importance, and medical future. They continue by

explaining the threat to coral reefs including coral bleaching, overfishing and destructive fishing

methods, unsustainable tourism, pollution, aquarium trade, coral disease, and invasive species.

Coral Guardian uses these facts to draw readers to donate to their program, most prominently,

their Adopt a Coral one. Because the organization does require funding from donations in order

to operate, there is a small level of bias. Their tone does not seem to elevate the importance or

cris of coral reefs to an unreasonable degree. They do this by providing solid, quality scientific

evidence through their own research. The team also posts their impact reports showing their

discoveries, impact, growth, and fund distribution. They have yearly impact reports from 2013 to

2022. Coral Guardian posts these reports freely and shows they are a reliable source on the topic

of coral reefs, even if they accept donations.

Veron, J.E.N., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Lenton, T.M., Lough, J.M., Obura, D.O., Pearce-Kelly, P.,

Sheppard, C.R.C, Spalding, M., Stafford-Smith, M.G., Rogers, A.D. (2009). The coral reef

crisis: The critical importance of <3500ppm CO2. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 58(10), 1428-1436.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2009.09.009

The study in this peer-reviewed scholarly article discusses how rising CO2 levels will

destroy coral reefs and how that affects the oceanic ecosystem. It is clear from the credentials of

the authors that they are experts on coral reefs and marine biology. All of the authors are
researchers associated with institutions and universities in Australia and the United Kingdom.

This includes the University of Queensland, the institution of Coral Reef Research in Australia,

and the University of East Anglia UK, to name a few. They bring a wide variety of specialties

and skill sets to write this paper. The authors explain how growing CO2 levels promote a major

threat to an incredibly important marine environment is, citing their role in biodiversity,

“elaborate adaptation, richly complex species interdependencies, and a fertile source of

medically active compounds. The authors discuss the timeline of coral bleaching, starting in the

1970s, as well as changing weather patterns. They state that these benefits are at risk because of

the domino effect caused by abnormal CO2 levels. The authors say that coral reefs are

disappearing due to a multitude of factors. These factors include ocean acidification, falling

aragonite saturation, stressors like high intensity storms and deteriorating water quality, sea-level

changes, over-fishing, biotic responses (pathogen and parasite outbreaks), and resilience. Each of

these topics are discussed in great detail, providing a clear idea of how this factor affects coral

reefs. The authors explain how there are potential remedial options to save coral reefs, but say

“The speed at which climate change is impaction reef ecosystems leaves little opportunity for

evolutionary processes to come to the aid of corals and other reef inhabitants as they would have

done over geological intervals of time.” They state that reducing carbon emissions through

carbon dioxide sinks, and planetary scale CO2 removal could be beneficial but are unlikely to

happen due to the difficulty and cost. If something is not done soon, no option will be viable.

The authors conclude by saying that humans must act now. This article provides sound scientific

evidence to support their claim of the danger of rising CO2 levels to oceanic ecosystems. The

authors provide over 160 different references to other scientific articles and are cited throughout

the paper. This source is limited by the tone and language as it can be difficult to understand if
one is not familiar with marine biology and similar fields. It was written in 2009, however, the

evidence provided is still highly accurate over a decade later. This is due to the studies conducted

to predict the outcome of rising CO2 levels. The tone of the article was not biased.

Heron, S. F., Maynard, J. A., Van Hooidonk, R., Eakin, C. M. (2016). Warming trends

and bleaching stress of the world’s coral reefs 1985-2021. National Library of Medicine.

https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fsrep38402

The four authors of this article are all members of various marine research centers,

offering a diverse understanding. Two of the authors are associated with NOAA Coral Reef

Watch and NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research, two prominent US coral reef

research institutions. This paper is a scholarly peer-reviewed article and as the title implies,

discusses the trends of warming temperatures and how “in recent years have been extremely

stressful to coral reefs. They state that because reefs are among the most sensitive ecosystems in

the world, they are highly susceptible to the negative effects of climate change. The authors say

that even though coral paling is common in the warm season, continual rise in oceanic

temperature, and prolonged exposure causes coral paling to become coral bleaching which is

extremely dangerous to reefs. The authors conducted a study to analyze the trends of sea surface

temperature (SST) and thermal stress between 1985-2012. They concluded that “Thermally

stressed corals have higher disease susceptibility and reduced reproductive output and skeletal

growth.” They explain how this leads to the local extinction of coral species and provides lower-

quality habitats and ecosystems for the surrounding biological species. This article presents

scientific evidence that rising aquatic temperatures are detrimental to the reef ecosystem. The
tone is not biased and scientifical. The limits of this article come from the language used. The

article focuses heavily on the scientific aspect of their topic as it shows research results. This

would be hard to understand for one who does not have some experience in marine biology. The

authors provide seventy-nine references to other papers with similar topics and are cited

throughout the article. While the data collected is from a timeframe as far back as 38 years ago,

the research is still beneficial to the current issue and topic.

Thompson, L. (2022). What can be done to save coral reefs? Khaled bin Sultan Living

Oceans Foundation. www.livingoceansfoundation.org/what-can-be-done-to-save-coral-reefs

This blog post is a popular source published by the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans

Foundation (KSLOF), an organization dedicated to “providing science-based solutions to protect

and restore ocean health.” The post is written by Liz Thompson, the CCO at KSLOF. Thompson

is a science communicator with 20 years of experience working in marine conservation. She has

a bachelor’s degree in marine biology from Brown University and a master’s in marine affairs

and policy from the University of Miami. Thompson’s post discusses ways that “people” can

help in the movement to stop the decline of coral reefs. She states that there are five things the

common people can do in localized efforts to “reduce compound stressors reefs face, helping

them to recover from the next major disturbance event.” Thompson says we can regulate

nearshore fishing and ban destructive fishing practices, establish marine protected areas, reduce

land-based pollution and runoff, improve monitoring and enforcement, educate the public, and

help members of small communities to get involved. This source has elements that question the

validity and its usefulness. Thompson has a background in marine biology; however, she does

not have graduate work in oceanic science besides marine affairs. She does not provide scientific
evidence to support her claims that these 5 reasons would help coral reefs. Her reasons seem to

be rather popular and can be found on similar websites with no scientific background. This does

not mean that Thompson’s ideas or propositions are dismissible, however, she does not provide

any evidence to validate them. No citations were included. There is not a biased tone in the

article and the tone is simple and can be understood by the average person. She is the Chief

Communications Officer at KSLOF, and this could imply this article is made to promote traffic

on their website. While the article may provide some legitimacy, the author does not have

enough credibility to back her claim without supporting evidence and research.