Study: nutrients destroy Caribbean reefs

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced Wednesday they have discovered nutrient pollution is killing Caribbean reefs.

Dr. John Bruno, assistant professor of marine sciences, said he and his colleagues at other U.S. universities conducted field experiments off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The results suggest chemical nutrients washed and dumped into the sea can increase the severity of coral diseases.

Said Bruno: "Caribbean coral reefs have declined dramatically over the past 20 years or so as disease epidemics have swept through them. In less than a year, the two most common species that covered 60 percent to 70 percent of the bottom were just wiped out, becoming functionally extinct and changing possibly forever the structure of those marine communities.

"It was analogous to losing all the pine trees in the Carolinas down into Georgia."

Bruno said the researchers found even modest rises in nutrient pollution could increase the mortality of Caribbean corals by facilitating the spread of disease.

The findings appear in the December issue of the journal Ecology Letters.