The world's largest coral system is threatened

Coral development in Australia's famous Great Barrier Reef underground is the biggest decline in the last four centuries, threatening ecosystems and other marine species.

A hundred-year-old coral mass at the Great Barrier Reef.Photo: BBC.

Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system in the world consisting of more than 2,900 different coral reefs and 900 islands, stretching 2,600 km on an area of ​​344,000 square kilometers. This system is located in the Coral Sea, off the state of Queensland and can be observed from the universe.

Dr Glenn De'ath and colleagues at the Australian Oceanographic Institute investigated 328 giant Porites coral colonies at 69 different locations on the Great Barrier Reef. These corals are all several hundred years old. Through studying the coral skeleton they discovered calcification process has decreased by 13.3% since 1990.

Porite coral is home to many marine species.Photo: BBC.

This decline has been determined to be unprecedented in the last 400 years. According to scientists, global warming and increasing acidity in seawater are the cause of this situation. This decline in growth threatens species that live in the coral reef system, which is the center of ecosystem formation and food supply for tens of thousands of other marine species.