Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Emeritus Professor Barbara Brown
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
The loss of pigmentation, or 'bleaching', in tropical reef organisms such as corals and symbiotic sea anemones has been extensively reported around the world over the last 15 years. The widespread bleaching of corals has generally been associated with seawater warming; increased sea surface temperatures and irradiance both play a part in eliciting the bleaching response. At the same time, it is recognized that bleaching is a generalized stress response in symbiotic cnidarians, being elicited also by exposure to pollutants such as heavy metals, oil, pesticides and increased sedimentation. However, reported occurrences of bleaching in response to pollutants in the field are extremely limited. Such events, unlike seawater warming-induced bleaching, are usually extremely localized. Nevertheless, there exists the possibility that seawater warming and pollutant discharges may act additively or synergistically to produce severe bleaching. Recovery of coral communities following bleaching-induced mortality is affected by pollution, which may either delay (or halt) recovery and/or cause a shift in species dominance so that branching coral species become replaced by more physically rigorous massive corals, with resultant loss in ecosystem biodiversity. As a generalized stress response, bleaching has much to offer in the development of toxicological bioassays. Measurements of symbiotic algal loss, algal division rates and alterations in synchronous algal division patterns in selected hosts offer sensitive tools for the assessment of the effects of pollutants, which in some cases have shown greater resolution than molecular assays.
Author(s): Brown BE
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: International Journal of Environment and Pollution
Year: 2000
Volume: 13
Issue: 1
Pages: 392-415
Print publication date: 01/01/2000
ISSN (print): 0957-4352
ISSN (electronic): 1741-5101
Publisher: Inderscience Publishers
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJEP.2000.002328
DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2000.002328
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
