More than 400 suffer extensive bleaching, in which heat kills algae that help reef-building organisms grow.
In the process, they destroy whatever lives there, including reef-building organisms, turtles and giant clams, while sending up plumes of corrosive sand and sediment that settle on surrounding reefs, killing them, McManus explains.
Unfortunately, it is also indiscriminate killing not only the target fish, but also any other creatures it encounters, including the reef-building organisms themselves.Fishing with explosives is even worse.
The origin of atolls has always fascinated sailors and naturalists, who early appreciated that, although reef-building organisms inhabit only the shallowest depths of the sea (about 100 m [330 feet]), the reefs rose from much deeper.
Subsequent drilling in guyots west of Hawaii confirmed this view; samples of rocks from the tops contained fossils of Cretaceous age representing reef-building organisms of the kind that inhabit shallow water.
The corresponding reduction in Ω may cause these waters to become corrosive to shell-building organisms.
Moreover, shell-building organisms that were previously noted to be susceptible to acidified waters in laboratory experiments appeared to thrive.
Seagrasses also undergo a high rate of photosynthesis that may serve to buffer changes in ocean chemistry that affect shell-building organisms.
