A threatened area CORAL REEFS

The Great Barrier Reef: We will watch all three presentations. You will vote. Assessment: SKILLS: Individual grade for your section – slide content and presentation skills KNOWLEDGE: Individual grade for what you remember afterwards – worksheet. UNDERSTANDING AND APPLICATION: Exam question

Where the Great Barrier Reef is Facts that let us know it is a biodiversity hotspot (1 person) How coral forms, How the GBR functions as an ecosystem – trophic levels, food web, energy, inputs, outputs, (all the key words up till now) (2 people) Human threats – tourism, farming, fishing, global warming (2 people) Natural threats – Predators – crown of thorns starfish, storms/cyclones/El Nino (1 person) Whoever finishes first: Conclusion – All of these threats combined – equilibrium – consequences for economy/coastal defence/biodiversity.

(Hard coral species, proportion soft coral out of world’s population) Where the Great Barrier Reef is Facts that let us know it is a biodiversity hotspot Length/area No of species Types of species (Hard coral species, proportion soft coral out of world’s population) No. of world’s threatened turtles, species of marine mammals

Human threats – tourism, farming, fishing, global warming Over fishing Sea floor trawling Commercial/subsistence farming Sedimentation Mangroves Sea pollution – causes Coral bleaching

Natural threats – Predators – crown of thorns starfish, storms/cyclones/El Nino Diseases Predators Crown of thorns starfish Storms Cyclones El Nino

Conclusion Can withstand one threat Combined threats a problem Irreversible damage Breakdown of the reef system Critical threshold reached – even if threats stop, damage cannot be reversed and ecosystem won’t recover Loss of biodiversity New equilibrium established – not a hotspot anymore